


Haunted

by wolf_shadoe



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Horror, Multiple Endings, Murder Mystery, Thriller, Tragedy, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-26 20:54:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolf_shadoe/pseuds/wolf_shadoe
Summary: Spike picks up a ghost. An AH mystery/thriller/tragedy.TW/CW for death, murder, violence, suicide, drugs, discussion of the drug rape of an OC in the past, prisons, guns, and rather excessive use of the F-word.Partially betaed by the fantabulous Micrindle23; all remaining mistakes are my impatient arse's fault.Chapters title credits to various artists; I'll list them at the end, once I've chosen them all.
Relationships: Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Never met a girl like you before

Interstate Fifteen out of Vegas on a chill desert night, pulled over on a small shoulder of the road landmarked with a billboard advertising one casino or another. Lounged back against the bonnet in the shadow of that sign, lighting a smoke while he waited for the sound of a V8 engine to disappear towards the city. Kept feeling that prickle on the back of his neck that said someone was watching him; peered out into the moonless dark of the scrubland ahead, then up and down that empty highway into the distance, searching for the source of it. Nothing there.  _ Paranoid _ .   


When he gave up and turned back to ponder the desert, there she was.   


A thin and sleeveless yellow sundress in the cool night air; hair that sat in perfect glossy waves, both too still and too golden-bright for the shadows she stood in. Soft lips that curled at the corners with just a hint of warm-hearted amusement; a distinctly cute little nose. But most of all, her eyes. Sparkling with playful optimism, over a deep pool of private hurts. Someone who'd been well and truly fucked over by life at a few points, but still believed in trying to make things better, or at least the best of what they had. He knew how that felt.   


"Hello," he said casually, as though finding yourself facing a stranger across ten yards of uninhabited desert in the middle of the night was a perfectly normal occurrence. But somehow, it felt like it was exactly what he'd been expecting. And this girl, whoever she was, didn't feel like a stranger.   


She smiled at him, friendly and hopeful, then her lips moved as she said something in reply. Then another something, and he suspected this one was a question, but there wasn't even a whisper of sound from her. Her smile faded away into a sorrowful sadness that made him ache to apologise, to comfort her, to fix whatever it was that had made her feel like that. Then she turned around, and started walking away.   


She was a vision of sleek and shiny in the nowhere-desert, and something was definitely not quite right. But he'd always been a ready fool. He pushed off the bonnet and followed after her.   


They crossed the scrappy scrubland, through loose sands and orange dirt. The wind picked up around him, but it never seemed to touch her. Humps and hills and dry creekbeds swirled past in unseen shadows, and he was probably high and definitely lost and maybe walking to his doom out here. But the trip was exciting and her enticing, so he couldn't stop and never dreamt of turning back.

He felt he must have known her before, in some long-forgotten life; she was the missing piece he couldn't picture until she was found, the echo of a song he'd been waiting all his life to hear. Her feet made no noise on sand or rock nor through dry and rustley grasses, yet he knew what her laughter must surely sound like if a voice were given to it. A warmth, an ease, a comforted glow began to fill his chest, and if she was only a phantom leading him to his death, he couldn't quite bring himself to care.

Then they reached another shallow valley. One so much like all the rest, only a nameless dip in the ground, a crack in the surface between two long rises; a place there might once have been water, when the land was wetter and full of different creatures. But it quaked him with a sudden fear so strong he finally stilled his feet. Something terrible was down there. Every scrap of animal instinct he had was shouting it at him. Screaming the alarm to run, run, run away from the horror he  _ knew _ was just down there. Down there in that thin crevice in the rocks at the far end, the one she was standing still in front of.   


His heart pounded harder in his chest, carrying the alarm through his body, preparing his feet for flight. Breath became an anxious panting, all of him tingling with ready tensed muscles.   


Then she slowly turned back to him, and beckoned with one sad and lonely little hand.   


So he told his instincts to fuck off, and followed her down there.

She wanted him to look, of course. Pointed at the crevice with one trembling finger, her eyes so big and sad.   


He longed to put his arms around her shoulders and turn her away; tell her that whatever was in there didn't matter any more. They didn't need to see it. They could leave this awful place and go far, far away together, and never look behind them. But he couldn't bring himself to reach for her. He, who prided himself on his fearless disregard for everything life tried to rock him with and a reckless disregard of any danger, was frozen in fucking terror at the idea of trying to touch this girl who was standing so gently sombre beside him.   


So he took the less impossible challenge, and got down on his hands and knees in front of the crack in the rocks.   


It was dark, of course. Pitch black. He dug through his pocket for his zippo, then sat there holding it, hating the thought of seeing what was in there almost as much as the one of reaching for it blindly.  _ Almost _ , so he flicked the cap open and grated the fire to life.   


Still couldn't see much. Reddish-grey dirt, darker rocks; the crevice not quite two feet high and jutting with walls and angles that threw shadows in every direction. And something darker again, near the entrance; something smallish and glinting with reflected bits of light from his flame. He reached for it with trembling fingers, stretching his hand right out to avoid moving his face any closer to the crevice than necessary. Snagged one corner of it and drew it out stealthily, as though something in those shadows might have seized his bare wrist if he moved too fast. Jesus, he wished he'd worn his coat tonight. The fuck was he doing out here in a t-shirt? He shuffled back from the hole as he lifted the object free, then sat back on his haunches to study it, balancing the lighter on the ground.

It was a handbag, or a purse, however they were categorised. A little black thing with a shoulder-length strap and black beads and sequins dotting the front. His fingers shook harder as they held it, chest gripped by a rush of eldritch horror. "Yours?" he asked the girl - young woman, really - and his voice came out a husky whisper.   


She pressed her lips together and nodded. Then turned her eyes to the crevice and back, and gave him a look that seemed to say,  _ well, what are you waiting for?   
_

He glared at her sullenly, then dropped his gaze to the gap again. Sighed heavily to himself, knowing he was going to do this bloody insane thing rather than try to refuse her, then swallowed hard and reached back in there.

There'd been something at the back, a much bigger shape, a different patch of shadow that he somehow hadn't wanted to look anywhere near. But she was waiting, and he had to know, so he reached for it now, stretching the ligaments of his arm to their limits, getting down on his stomach for more reach, squinting into the darkness where the tiny flame couldn't make it.

His fingers touched something. He wanted to think it was fur, the long, luxurious coat of some as-yet-undiscovered desert creature. But it wasn't. His fingertips stroked it with a trembling, featherlight touch, and it was still soft and silky through the dust that had fallen on it. Shouldn't be dusty. Shouldn't be lying out here in a lonely cave. Moving almost without conscious control of his hand, he reached a little further to feel what was below it.

His fingertips registered-- his brain decoded the information they sent straight into an order, and he was running before the words caught up. Fleeing from that hellish place, fingers of one hand held out to the side, away from his body. Running until he tripped on something in the dark and went tumbling and sprawling into the dirt, then barely made it back to his hands and knees before he was hurling the contents of his stomach out between them.  _ Skin.  _ Dead skin. Cold and wrong and horrible skin, rotting skin over dead bones, and the smell of it was everywhere now, staining strong enough to blast right through his abused olfactory nerves, the stench of death polluting everything and his stomach unable to stop heaving at it.   


He finally got it under control and spat the last foul dribble of bile-alcohol-whatever from his mouth, then sank back to sit on his shins and run his hands through his hair. Remembered too late that the left one had just been touching that ( _ cold dead skin in a dark cave _ ), then shoved the thought aside and smoothed his hair down. Not like he'd never touched a body before. Shouldn't have been bloody freaking out about this one. Christ, what the hell was wrong with him tonight? Had to be a bloody bad dose of something he couldn't remember taking, sending him off into the middle of fuck-knows-where to prod at the illusory corpse of a hallucination of a girl.

"Sorry," said a soft voice.

He shrieked like a startled rabbit and leapt away from the sound, landing on his arse and crab-scrabbling back a few more feet.

When he worked out what he was looking at again, she was standing just back from where he'd fallen, wincing at him sympathetically. "So I guess you can hear me now?" she asked with a grimace.   


"Yeah," he said in a sound that was part shaky whisper and part hysterical chuckle.

They stared at each other in shyly assessing silence for a while, then she took her lip in her teeth and glanced down.   


"So, sorry about the whole go-poke-my-corpse freakage," she said slowly. "I just really needed to make sure it was found."

"Understandable," he said, only slightly breathlessly. "Sorry for the whole fleeing-and-vomiting-at-the-touch-of-your-body." He snickered, and then chuckled, and then she got caught in it too and joined in, and then they laughed like bloody loons together.

They got ahold of themselves before too long, and he heaved a relieved sigh at the slight easing of the air. So he was still sitting on his arse god-knew-where in the desert with a (really rather adorable) ghost grinning down at him. Stranger things had happened. Probably. Less intriguing ones, certainly.   


"That's okay," she said with a light shrug. "It's been… I don't actually know. But long enough that I guess I can't be too offended you don't find my rotting skin attractive. I felt that, by the way. Strange little zapping thing." She tapped one side of her neck. "So what's your name, anyway? Crap, sorry, I'm babbling, aren't I? I may have been out here a little too long." She snapped her mouth shut.   


He grinned, because fuck, this was well past bat-shit and into did he eat a fucking cactus or something, but it was also a better time than he'd had for far too long. "Spike," he told her.   


She frowned, confused, and that was adorable on her too.   


"My name?" he added.

"Your name is  _ Spike?" _ she asked, still frowning, though now it was tending more towards amusement.   


"What of it?" he threw back. "What's yours, then?"

"Buffy," she said smartly.   


He scoffed. " _ Much _ more sensible."

"What? At least it's a real one. No mother names her newborn baby  _ Spike. _ "

He lifted one shoulder. "Probably not." His certainly hadn't, but he wasn't about to go down that trail with her. "So what's your story, anyway?" He wanted to ask (and nearly did),  _ why the fuck is your corpse lying in a ditch out here? _ But that might have really offended her, and whatever was or wasn't real about this whole experience, he wasn't ready for it to end yet. "You just been loitering about looking for a bloke crazy enough to run after you into the desert?" he landed on instead.   


"Pretty much," she said with another shrug. "I mean, I wasn't sure at first. What was going on. With the suddenly all being a silent and incorporeal presence. Kinda hoped someone had spiked my drink, or that this was all just a really weird, really long dream…" She held her hands out slightly and turned them over, studying each side.

"Not convinced it isn't," he told her kindly. If the girl was really a ghost… Christ, what a mindfuck.   


She looked back at him and pulled a quick smile. "Then I figured this had to be one of those spooky unfinished business things, you know? 'Spirit can't move on until body laid to rest' or what have you. And I, uh, wasn't decided if I wanted to do anything to try to speed up that moving on." She started pacing up and down, gesturing as she talked. "I mean, I don't know any more about what  _ on _ is than I did when I was alive, and what if it's just, like, nothing? Or worse. Or what if I'm not supposed to do anything? Maybe this is supposed to be some sort of lesson, or meditation time, or… something. Or maybe this  _ is _ on, and I just don't know it yet. Maybe you're dead too, and those lights on the horizon are the ghost of Las Vegas. You're not, are you?" she asked suddenly, peering closer at him.

Unsettling was too mild a word for the possibility of it. "Not that I know of," he said with a frown.   


"Oh! You can't be; you're moving, like, the dirt and stuff," she said quickly, pointing at the earth around him. "And you picked up my bag." She started scanning the ground around where he'd first fallen. "I think it's around here somewhere." Her feet passed through grass without moving it, and he couldn't stop staring at them. "Anyway," she continued as she widened her search area. "Then I started thinking about how everyone was going to assume I'd just run off to start a new life somewhere without a word, which would have been pretty stink of me. So I thought I ought to be looking out for any opportunity for them to be told that I'm more dead than discourteous. But mostly… okay, I just got really bored. There's nothing here but  _ desert. _ And the cars never stop. But then you did!" She glanced at him, then swiftly back to the ground. "And way to go with the overshare, Buffy…" she muttered. "Ooh, there! Here." She pointed at a spot on the ground triumphantly.

He got up, slapping dust and dirt from his jeans, then approached her slowly and followed the direction of her point. Her bag was lying on a clump of grass, where he must have dropped it when he tripped. Hadn’t realised he'd still been holding it at all. He brushed his hands off again and cautiously picked it up. It wasn't particularly heavy for its small size, but it felt very tangible in his hands, rough and scratchy on the sequined side, smooth satin on the other. His elbow was feeling kind of tangible too, for that matter; hot and stinging where he must have landed on it. He rotated it out to the side, glancing at it. Only a grazed tear where a stone must have nicked it.

"Oh, you're bleeding," she said anxiously, spotting it. "Did I mention that I'm really sorry about the spooking thing?"

"It's fine," he said, brushing it aside and considering her bag again.   


"We should go back to your car," she announced, in the manner of someone used to taking charge of situations.   


Probably should. He looked around them, spotting the slightly brighter edge of sky that marked the direction of the city, and not much else. Didn't have the foggiest idea where a certain small valley lay in relation to the city. Just knew he wasn't bloody going back for his lighter. Wasn't too sure where the road he needed to find sat either.   


"It's this way," she said, tilting her head in indication as she moved off towards the leftish side of the glow on the horizon. "And, um, you came from that way." She pointed past him at an angle.

Right. Of course he did. He'd tripped from here to land over there. He looked at her ahead of him and wondered suddenly if she was really planning to lead him back to the road, or if there was a more sinister purpose to this whole event. But it seemed a stupid time to finally be stopping to ask himself that question. Then came wondering if she'd still exist once he reached the familiarity of his car, and that was a sadder thought. He told himself to record everything about this experience - about her - on the way, just in case.   


He followed her in silence for a minute or two, pondering the fact that for all her rapid-fire explanation, he still had no idea how she'd ended up here. Suicide? She'd hardly have been the first punter to get screwed over by this city and decide death was the only way out of their dilemma. A lonely, hidden death where no one would find them until it was too late. Or perhaps not to be found at all, aiming to vanish rather than shame a squeamish family somewhere. Might have given her a reason to be worried about where she was going to move on to. But she'd said she didn't want to leave everyone thinking she'd just up and vanished on them. Could be a post-mortem change of mind, he supposed… but somehow it just didn't seem to fit. She was too vibrant, too  _ hopeful,  _ even the knowledge that she was a ghost unable to fully dim the positivity from her eyes. Accident, then? Only too easy to get yourself into trouble out there, under an influence, wandering lost in a foggy confusion until the night's hyperthermia or day's dehydration saw you delirious and crawling into any quiet corner on offer to rest for a little while. A little while that became an ever once you closed your eyes. Well, until you woke up dead and ghostly, apparently. He only hoped it was peaceful, whatever had happened. Painless. Hoped no one… that she hadn't been frightened, or hurting.   


"What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.   


It took him a moment to pull his head back from images of her stumbling around in a fevered confusion and search his brain for the answer to her question. "On my way back to LA," he told her after a few beats. Had he pulled over for a smoke? Must have done; it was a habit, stopping somewhere as soon as the chaotic whirlwind of Vegas was out of sight, switching the engine off and listening to the open sky until he felt the tension of the trip settle. It was a  _ stupid  _ habit, given the possibility of a nosy copper pulling over to offer roadside assistance with a side of suspicious poking around his vehicle, but he knew his business well enough that they wouldn't find anything in a standard sweep.   


"You live there?" she asked with eager curiosity. She must have been bored stiff and far too lonely, waiting out here with only her ghost musings for company.   


"Yeah, I guess." The car was more home than LA was, but yes, if he had an address, it was there.

"You guess?"   


"I travel a lot," he explained. "Haven't spent much time there. But yeah, I've got a little place in Santa Monica."   


She was quiet for a bit, in a way that felt rude to interrupt. "I'm sort of from there," she told him. "LA central, then Torrance. You know it?" She looked back at his face.   


"Yep." Hell, this had better not become a  _ carry my words from beyond the grave back to my mourning family _ mission. He was  _ not  _ the person to pull that off with any sensitivity.   


She nodded and turned back to the desert ahead. "So what do you do? With the travelling.  _ You're  _ not LA born and bred."

"No," he agreed. "London, originally. Crossed the pond… six years ago." Wouldn't burden her with the details of that whole mess. "I deliver things. Courier boy. Take sensitive parcels from a jumped-up bigwig in LA and hand-deliver them to pretentious arseholes in other cities."   


"Things like?" she asked, glancing back again, her eyes sharply intelligent.   


"Paperwork. Sensitive documents. Confidential stuff."

"Drugs," she said decidedly. "You're a drug runner, aren't you?" There was something shrewdly hopeful in her expression.   


He shrugged. "Sometimes there's paperwork too."

She nodded once, firm and decisive. "So you're probably not someone particularly concerned about the proper procedure of the law, are you?"   


"Not as a rule," he said cautiously, wondering where she was going with this and why he'd just told her so much.

She nodded again. "Good. See, uh, it's going to be ages before anyone wonders why they haven't heard from me. I haven't really been keeping in touch with people. And my mom died, a few years ago. So there's not really any rush to send out the coroner or whatever. It's not like I'm going to get any deader, and I think that flesh suit's well past pretty."   


God, she looked far too young to have lost her mum, poor thing. "I'm sorry," he said, hit with a gut blow of sympathy. "About your mum."

She shrugged one shoulder slightly, then dipped her chin at the ground in a tiny nod. "So, I didn't just get bored of loitering about out here," she said with an air of admission. "I was kind of hoping I might be able to find out what happened. Like, I'd lead you there, and you'd call in the authorities, and maybe they'd stand around and say,  _ oh, yes, this is clearly…, _ and then I'd know. Or maybe my unfinished business isn't just the lack of burial. Maybe I'm supposed to discover how I wound up there."

"You don't know?" he asked.   


"No clue," she said brightly. "And I think I should. Before I go anywhere. So maybe you don't have to tell anyone just yet. I don't want to vanish or something if they bury me before they solve it.  _ Maybe, _ you could help me find out who murdered me, before I cross over or whatever happens next."

He stopped walking. "You think someone murdered you?" he asked in an unintentionally hushed voice.   


"Well I didn't just wander into the desert and die," she said, turning around to glare at him in offence. "Of course someone murdered me. Probably elsewhere, before coming out here to ditch my body."

"Thought about this, haven't you," he said to stall while he thought.   


"Wouldn't you?" she shot back.   


He tilted his head in a gesture of reluctant agreement. "Guess so." Sighed to himself, casting a long look back into the dark towards where that valley lay. "What, then; you want me to play some kind of detective, tracking down the story of your last twenty-four hours alive or something?" It was crazy.  _ He _ was crazy to be considering it. But hadn't everything been, since the moment he'd first felt her watching him? And he… all right, he wanted to help her somehow. Especially if it meant spending more time with her.

"Ya-huh," she said with a bright nod.

"I can't go back to Vegas, if that's where you came from," he hedged. "Gotta be in LA by dawn." Didn't really want all the gruesome details of how this spirited creature ended up rotting in the desert singed into his mind's eye. But if someone else was responsible for it… they needed to be brought to account. And detective he may not have been, but deliverer of backstreet punishment? That he'd had some practice in.

"That's good," she shrugged. "We can investigate from there."

"What the hell," he sighed. "Okay, pet, we'll try our hand at it. Can't promise results, mind, but I'll give it a shot, yeah?"   


"Excellent," she said with a beaming smile, and turned around to continue walking. 


	2. That smile's so hard to resist

Buffy led him to the road first, then they followed it westward until they came across the billboard and therefore his car. The keys of which were dangling from the ignition, making him glad for the fact that he'd parked in the shadows and behind a patch of scrub out of habit. Sure, the DeSoto was well coated in dust from the trip, but those side stripes still stood out in all their sexy glory to lure any passersby that had even a fraction of taste into ditching their ugly ride for it.   


In another reversion to habit amongst all the oddity, he opened the passenger door for her.

"Genteel of you." She sounded curious as she slid into the seat.

He shrugged loudly and slammed the door after her before rounding to his own side and dropping into his seat, setting her purse down between them. "Yeah, well, you could yet prove be some demonic malevolent spirit inside this alluring disguise," he said offhand, picking up his smokes from the dash and tapping one out. "Not having my sanity sucked away or my body hijacked for the want of displaying you some basic respect."

She laughed, a true laugh of amusement this time, rather than that brief crack up in the desert, and it was exactly like he'd imagined her laugh would sound, only better. Warm, in the bloody frigid temperature the car seemed to have plummeted to. "That's right," she said primly, folding her hands in her lap for a moment before they snuck free again to help her twist around to check out the car's interior. "You'd better do exactly what I demand, or else I'll possess you to get it done myself."

"Can you?" he asked idly. Best to find these things out at the get-go. He turned the ignition on and held the car's lighter down to heat up.   


"How should I know? I forgot to study up for this. No one warned me I was going to wake up a ghost one day."   


He pulled the lighter out and rolled it around the end of his smoke, inhaling slowly to spread the awkward embering of it inwards. Damn bollocks of a lighter. But better than none. Shoved it back in its slot and started winding down the window so he could close his door on the cold without smoking out the car. "When did you?" he asked. "Wake up like this?"   


"Um..." Her eyes lifted to the ceiling as she thought. "I'm not sure. A couple of days, maybe? It doesn't feel like that long. Or it could have been longer. I wasn't keeping track of when it was dark or light or if there even were days and nights. Maybe it was only tonight." She grimaced to herself and started inspecting the car again.   


He wanted to tell her to forget about what she now was and all the unanswered questions pertaining to it, and to talk about almost anything else; however long it'd been was surely more than enough time to spend dwelling on the uncomfortable fact of your own death. Worse, he almost thought he wanted to get to  _ know  _ her, beyond the facts of ghosthood or the mission she'd given him; to know what made her smile the brightest and what she liked to do for fun. Or, had liked to. Fuck. He sighed and blew smoke out of the window, watching the shadowy desert. What would a detective ask... "Did you, ah, happen to take a closer feel around that cave than I did?"

"You mean, was there a honking big knife sticking out of my back with  _ 'Property of…' _ written on the handle?" she asked dryly. "I did, and no such luck. Just all the ookiness of decomposition. I could… sort of feel it, at first-- my body, not the decomp." She shivered. "So I checked for knives or gaping holes or signs my head had been caved in, but everything looked normal. No answers there."

"Cops might find some," he said quietly, looking out of the window again. "Fingerprints. Hair. Toxicology or something."

"Maybe they will," she agreed with a shrug. "But some of that will still be there later. And if I can find out who it was, maybe I can hijack  _ their _ body while I'm still all freaky-ghost-girl. Make them confess, then drop them off the nearest tall building and see how they like being dead." She pouted out her bottom lip, and an urge to nibble on it grabbed him by the balls.   


Jesus fuck, he should not have been eyeing up a ghost this way. Especially one who was probably in a bad headspace right now.   


"You're not changing your mind, are you?" she asked, worry sneaking into her tone.   


"No," he said shortly.  _ Just feel weird about leaving the solid part of you lying out there like that. _ "Do you want to… I don't know. Say goodbye or something?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Sort of did that when it started becoming less… tangible to me."

"All right." He tossed the rest of his smoke and turned the engine on. It rattled a little, throttley in the cold, so he rubbed at his goosebump-covered forearms while he waited for it to warm up and smooth out. Looked over into the backseat for his coat; it wasn't there, but a loose long-sleeved button-down was, so he dragged it over to put on.   


She settled into her seat, tucking her legs up. The fabric beneath her didn't give in the slightest to show that there was someone sitting on it, but her sunshine yellow dress creased against it.

"Are you, ah, warm enough?" he felt compelled to ask. "Not that I make a habit of carrying spare ghost sweaters around."

She grinned, huffed a breath of a laugh. "I'm fine. I think maybe temperature doesn't exist for me anymore."

He nodded and shoved the column shifter into gear. Felt too unpracticed at sharing this space with anyone. And shaken from his usual sneering disregard for company by the strangeness of the whole thing. She'd probably gone and got the idea he was some kind of pushover, sort of guy who often stopped to patiently help strays on the side of the road. A drug-running one, mind, but still far from the hot-blooded wildcard of badness and attitude that he really was. Come to think though, she'd been mighty quick to call him on the drug thing. Might be their circles crossed closer than he'd realised. Well, he'd find out. Later. He eased the car into motion, then prodded the power button on its old cassette player. "Hope you like the Dead Kennedys," he told her, before the blare of it filled the car.

  
  


Got through two more smokes and a few tracks of noise, then he reached for the knob and turned the stereo down, feeling more himself again. And somewhat rude. But sodding hell, girl couldn't drop all this on a man without expecting him to need a few moments. Mostly, though, he just wanted to be talking to her again.   


"So what's the plan?" he asked, since  _ tell me all about yourself  _ seemed a little tactless in the current situation. "Presume you've got a shortlist of suspects in mind, if you think we can work it out ourselves."

"Yeah," she sighed. "Kinda do."

He kept his eyes on the road, giving her room to elaborate or otherwise.   


“I have - had, I suppose - this… ex-boyfriend. I mean, I don't think he would- It’s a long story.”

“It’s a long drive.”   


She sighed and shifted around in her seat, turning more towards the window. “He was part of the whole drug scene too. I was… a little naive. Or maybe just cursed. Anyway, we met when I was still living in LA, at some party I'd snuck out to attend. Only talked for a minute. Six months later he showed up in Torrance, fresh out of a rehab program and telling me that meeting me that night had inspired him to try to turn his life around. Flattering, right? I thought it was." She raised a hand, palm out facing him. "In my defence, I was sixteen and going through some stuff."

He gave her a rueful smile and knowing tilt of his head; not the only one who'd done sodding idiotic things at that age.

She dropped her hand back to her lap and continued, "So, he got a regular job and an apartment in town, and we slowly started dating. And it went really well for a while. Or, I thought it did. Again, young and naive. Rose-tinted glasses. Eventually things got serious, all with the big declarations of forever love and speeches about how destiny must have brought us together. God, it's embarrassing. Are you  _ sure _ you want to hear this?"

"You really in a position to miss the chance to tell it to someone who can hear it?" he countered with a gently teasing smirk.

She snorted, smiling at her lap. "Guess not. Okay, so… I started staying over at his place whenever Mom was out of town, and that led to sleeping with him. One time. Because the next morning, this guy showed up at his door, calling him  _ Angelus, _ and suddenly he's saying has to go and last night was fun and  _ I'll call you. _ And okay, I was a little disappointed, but it was probably just me, right? Of course it wouldn't feel like such a big deal to him. It wasn't like it was  _ his _ first time or anything."   


_ Ouch. _ But she was really warming to her tale now, so he bit his tongue and kept his face towards the road.

"So I went home, and he didn't call, and didn't call, and I called and got no answer, so finally I went over there… and he was in bed with another woman. Or, on couch with another woman. All spread out on top of her, with the no having of the clothes and stuff. And his friend, the guy from that morning? Sitting on the chair across the room, with a handycam in one hand and his dick in the other, like he was multitasking a fucking porno. Everyone froze - or so I thought - then I ran back out of the door I'd just burst in through. Liam chased me, but when he got outside and it was bucketing down he realised he was still all nakey, so he gave up. I ran home to cry into my pillow." A bitter, cynical laugh sawed from her throat. "But that's not the bad part. He started calling me the next day, trying to apologise, blaming the drugs his friend brought. Said he'd thought the woman was me. I said I needed some time, and he needed to get his act together again, I don't know. So we decided to take a break. He goes back to LA for a bit, supposedly to be nearer to the rehab place he'd been through, but I was sort of having doubts. A couple of months went by, then I was at this club one night and a friend of mine was there with some girl I didn't know, and it was  _ her. _ Couch lady. And she was all in a state because she'd just found out she was pregnant and didn't know who the father could be. So I said,  _ as long as it's not Liam, ha, ha, _ feeling ready to throw down with this boyfriend-stealing hoe, and she said,  _ Liam who? _ Like she really didn't remember that time she kinda ruined my life." She looks at him sidelong, gauging his reaction so far.   


"They drugged her?" he asked bitterly.   


"Yep. At the club, probably. She didn't even recognise him in a photo. So we go to the police together, and they take statements and stuff, and eventually send it on to the cops in LA, and when they find out where Liam's staying, it's that guy's place. And it's full of videos. Including a couple that Liam's in. Or Angelus, as everyone in that scene seems to call him. Angel dust, lust; it's sick. Anyway, he claims he doesn't remember either, that he was a victim too, but the girl's not even conscious in them, and he sounds perfectly coherent."   


She blew a hard sigh out through her mouth, then murmured, "I testified against him. It was… yeah." She shook her head. "He did two years, for drug charges mostly, then suddenly he was back in Torrance, saying he understood why I had to do it but he was clean again now and he needed my help. I guess I felt kinda guilty, so I tried to sort of help out without getting involved, but it was difficult for both of us. Then he left again, and Mom died, and I moved around until I landed this job in Vegas. And… fuck, I don't know when now. Recently. I got a call at work from Liam. Saying that Whistler - camcorder guy - was out of jail too. And that I should let him - Liam - come and protect me from him. Like I'd need him around. And he got  _ really _ pissy when I refused him." She sighed again, but it was a tense, unhappy sound. "Then I woke up dead in the fucking desert without a scratch on me," she finished in a strained voice, gesturing angrily at the landscape outside of her window.   


He matched her next hard sigh, and she shot him an apologetic and slightly thankful smile from her downcast face.

"Sorry. I'm not usually so over-sharey, I swear. Not to strangers, anyway."

"Not a stranger," he said brightly. "I'm your... private detective, ain't I?"

"I just told you the biggest chunk of my whole life story, and I don't even know your real name," she said wryly.

"William." What the fuck had he told her that for? Apparently he had no bloody filter where this girl was concerned. "But no one calls me that." Except now he wanted to hear her say it. Could almost picture the shape of it on her lips in a soft moan of pleasure. He blinked a couple of times.  _ Concentrate.  _ Wasn't like anything could possibly come of this. Or like he wanted it too. Been too long, was all, since he'd… been with someone.   


"Is it a secret?" she asked hopefully.   


"Much as I can make it," he said conspiratorially.   


She grinned. "Good. Because you've already got too many of mine."

He shook his head. "Clues. Case history. If we're going to solve this, you'd better get used to it." Wished he had a voice recorder to capture every detail, every musical note of her voice. If it would record her. And if any recording wouldn't vanish with her if she did... maybe a notebook instead.   


"Not usually so needy, either," she muttered, looking mildly furious at herself about it.

"Ha," he barked in a snatch of dark humour. "Maybe you should've been."  _ Fuck.  _ There was no way that couldn't have been absolutely the wrong thing to say to a girl who'd possibly just been murdered by her jealous ex. He snapped his teeth shut with a grimace and told her, "I didn't mean that how it came out."

"How else was there for it to sound?" she asked him, eyes almost literally flashing with hot anger.

He shivered, then kept shivering, not only because of the rage in her voice but because the car had suddenly got  _ really _ fucking cold, so cold he could see his breath in the air. "Look," he said firmly, pleased to find his voice unwavering despite the chill running down his spine (and the heat rushing to his stupid prick at the sight of her so gloriously enraged), "I absolutely did  _ not  _ mean that this is somehow your fault. All I meant was, if you ever denied yourself anything because you didn't want to be  _ needy,  _ it's nought but a wasted opportunity now, ain't it? Your life's become less than short, luv. Think it's time to be grabbing anything you want from this far border of it with both hands." He tilted his head. "Figurative hands, I guess."

The air… well, it still wasn't warm, but it had become a little less frigid.   


She huffed a breath through her nose. "Yeah. Guess it is. Sorry, I've just… been a little irked with myself for the whole getting-murdered thing. Kind of a blow to the ego when you've long prided yourself on being strong and independent."

He shrugged a shoulder. "Everyone loses sometimes. Seems to me you're back on top now, working on unpuzzling what went down so you can see justice served. You'll win in the end."

"I'm dead, Spike," she said bluntly. "There's nothing  _ to _ win."

"Draw, then. We'll find out who fucked you over and make them pay for it so well that they'll  _ wish _ they had the death you did."   


She snorted softly, neither agreeing nor vetoing, and the last of that wave of cold air was finally replaced by the car's fan.   


"So, tell me more about this Liam bloke," he said. "You think he might have driven up there after you refused him?"

"I want to say no," she said slowly. "It's… god, this is going to sound terrible. Most of the time I know he's a despicable, abusive bastard with self-control issues. But sometimes… sometimes I only remember how much I loved him, and I wonder how things might have turned out if I'd… done it better. Somehow found more to give him, or been kinder, or firmer, or… just  _ been _ more." Her voice grew smaller and smaller, as though she were ashamed to admit not that she had loved him, but that all of her love for him hadn't been enough.   


"Know the feeling," he muttered. He didn't talk about Dru. To anyone. But hell, Buffy was baring a lot here on her own. "Been there. When you love someone with every damn thing you have, but they're just too broken up somewhere inside to know what to do with it."

"Who did you love?" she asked quietly.

How to possibly describe Drusilla? The mesmerising dark fey of a woman who had enthralled him into throwing his life into a meat mincer. The hollow-eyed and half-starved junky he'd never been able to love well enough to help. "An addict," he told her.   


"Sucks, doesn't it?" she said with a new sense of gentle kinship.

"Yep." Considered for a moment, then added, "It was back in England. Long time ago." He pushed the shadow of Drusilla back to the far corner of his brain where it belonged, and turned his attention back to the questions before them. "So, Liam drives up to talk to you in person. Maybe he slips something into your drink before you know he's around…" Now there was a thought… "What's the last thing you  _ do _ remember?"   


She stared hard into the middle distance, thinking. "Friday night. Or,  _ a _ Friday night. I have Saturday/Sundays off, so I usually go downstairs-- I work at Blue Birds, don't know if you've heard of it?"   


He nodded, a picture of the restaurant-bar-casino-hotel springing up in his mind.

"Usually go downstairs to the karaoke room after my shift, to sit down and have a drink before I go... home. Comfy seats. Good entertainment. I remember… going there. The stage was green, for some event… that's all. Getting a seat, I think holding a glass... then being in the desert." She cocked her head at the ceiling. "There's something there though. Like a big black hole. An absence of something. Helpful, I know."

"You sure we shouldn't pass this on to the police?" he asked dubiously. "They could check the cameras, maybe see what happened, who you left with?"

"What day is it?" she asked.

Had to think for a moment. "Thursday. Or, Friday by now." Had to meet Jimmy once the sun came up, unload what was stashed in the car. Fuck, he'd been bloody lucky to get away with leaving it on the side of the highway like that. Was already cutting it way too close heading back this late. Needed to bloody watch himself a mite closer in future.   


"More than the two days they hold it for," she said. "Tapes will be thoroughly redubbed by now."

"Bugger." He thought for a moment. "So. You're in the karaoke room. Liam's waiting for you. You're careful with your glass, but at some point there's a distraction across the room and you look away. He drops something in it, maybe just so you'll be less likely to slap him and run when he makes his move. Bit of chemical compliance."

Her face clouded, closing off. "Liam wouldn't- He's just not a  _ murderer _ . And he does love me, in his disturbed way."

Ah, she could see how very possible it was; was trying to shoot it down rather than face it. "Maybe it was an accident," he offered. "Maybe he just wanted to talk. Convince you into letting him move in to guard you from this Whistler guy. So he dopes you up, maybe waits until you leave so there won't be any risk of a scene in public. Follows you."

Her face twisted up in an uncomfortable grimace. "He was kind of lurk-in-shadows guy." She sighed. "Before we started dating, he'd pop out of dark corners whenever I was walking home late at night. But only because he wanted to protect me."

"So he wants to protect you. He tries to talk to you once you're away from work."

"I tell him to fuck off."

"You tell him to fuck off," he agreed. "He gets handsy, and there's a struggle-- He the grabby sort? Rough?" Pictured her struggling against someone gripping her forearm in a dark alley entrance; shouting for him to let her go. A desperate tug and a jerk; her head hitting concrete with a horribly final sound. He reached for another smoke to try to quell the sick feeling in his stomach.   


"Not really," she said after thinking about it. "He's a big guy, but he was always really… gentle with it. Hunched. Like he was afraid of hurting me," she said almost wistfully. Then shook it off to say challengingly, "And we already know he didn't brain me on the sidewalk or something. No noticeable injuries, remember?"

"Right." He tried to blink off the image, reset the scenario. Christ but this was unsettling. "Maybe you're more doped than that. Stumbling. He grabs you to stop you falling, and you scream or shout or something. So he puts his hand over your mouth, just to make you quiet. So you'll be able to listen." Quiet like his voice had got. Sinister. "He picks you up to carry you home, where he can protect you. Tells you all about how he's not going to hurt you. How he's only there to help. And he's pleased when you stop your silly attempt to get away, when you relax into him. Thinks you must have seen sense. Only, when he gets to your door…"  _ Her horribly limp body in Liam's big, brutish arms; those soft pink lips all pale and blue when he finally takes his hand off them. Eyes staring sightlessly, accusing with their empty silence, and everything about her dreadfully, dreadfully still. _ He shuddered.

"I'm a suffocated corpse. Great," she grumbled. Swallowed, then asked him cheekily, "Anyone ever told you that you have one hella twisted imagination?"

He snorted. "Once or twice."   


She laughed, a breathy, voiceless laugh of relieved tension. "Okay, so maybe it's possible. I'm doubtful on the doping part though. I mean, I'm  _ really  _ careful about that. History and all. And it was all on my mind again, after he rang. I know it seems like his M.O, but he said he'd been clean for a long time; kept trying to tell me about some church he's involved with now, and how he's right out of that life."

He worked his jaw, thinking. She was clearly conflicted about Liam; the misplaced guilt she felt for testifying against him had been palpable as she spoke about it. If he'd arrived at her door with his head bowed and flowers in hand, perhaps she'd have let him in, if only to hear him out and turn him down gently. And arseholes of his persuasion never accepted being turned down gently.   


She looked feisty, capable somehow, but she was a few inches under his own five-foot-seven and couldn't have weighed much more than a hundred pounds. If a big guy had got his arms around her in a headlock and lifted, she might have been unconscious before she could do anything to bruise. And neck compression was all too easy a way to kill someone, accidentally or otherwise. Just ask the bloke he'd shared a cell with. He shook his head. "Leave the details. I guess the real question we need to be asking is… One way or another, Liam finds himself holding your unbreathing body. What does he do next? The sensible thing and start screaming for help, for an ambulance, for someone who knows CPR? Or is he exactly the idiot he must be to have thrown away your relationship like that, and just assumes there's nothing to be done? Starts thinking about all the trouble he's going to be in?"

She was quiet for a while, gazing out of the window. "He wouldn't want to go back to jail. And it wouldn't  _ look _ like an accident, whatever had actually happened. I mean, I'd told Faith - woman I work with - about him calling, and to let me know if anyone came around asking about me. She knew I was anxious about it. Plus the whole police history. And he's… not the most logical thinker under stress." Her dress rippled like sunkissed wheat as she changed position. "I know I had him on the shortlist," she said glumly, "but I really don't want it to be him." Her pout returned. "Can't you convince me it wasn't instead of making it all so rational?"   


"Hey, you're the one what asked me to put a sodding detective's cap on," he said in mock outrage. Tossed his ciggy butt and adjusted in his seat too. "But yeah. You want to move on down the list, or shall we talk about something else for a bit?"   


"Anything else," she said gladly. "I've been stuck on this topic for… I guess it could be a week."

"Favourite ice cream flavour?"

"Cinnamon sugar cookie," she said brightly. 


	3. What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this

The road swept in and under them in the glow of the DeSoto's yellowish beams, split and fractured occasionally by the lights of a vehicle going the other way. She wasn't the fastest of cars off the mark, his girl; the best part of thirty years of hard miles and infrequent maintenance had worked their abuse on the engine before he'd first picked up the keys. And that gorgeous outline of hers didn't do really much for the handling, even without a CV joint that was starting to feel like it was going to need replacing. But on a flat open road, where he could tease her up to the right speed then settle back to let her smooth out into a rich, growly purr? There she came into her own. She was a cruising car, devouring the miles like some great, flank-striped panther of the night, rumbling contentment up through his hands and feet. And now they had company, him and his beast. Company that was doing  _ things _ to him; plunging hands into his insides to root all about, stirring up thoughts and ideas and  _ emotions _ that had lain undisturbed for so long. Not literal hands, mind, but she could possibly do that too. He'd never found himself so intrigued by another person before, and he was starting to worry it wasn't solely because she was a ghost.   


They'd gone from ice cream to movies to a heated debate about music (heated, and cold again). Favourite colours and desserts, and fairy-tales and, horribly, poems. Horribly, because he'd revealed too much, he knew, getting caught up in the conversation and in the being with her and reciting one softly, in an accent he'd long fought to replace with lower-class northerner and bits of Dru's lilting Cockney, then tried to bury further under the Midwestern American surrounding him.

She looked at him strangely afterwards - he could  _ feel _ her look as he fidgeted with the car's controls and lit another smoke.   


"Look," he said harshly before she could say anything. "Whatever you're thinking, fucking forget it. I'm not any type of respectable citizen. Just learnt a poem once, is all. Probably while I was in the clink."

"What'd you go to jail for?" she asked, undaunted and curious. Damned irrepressible thing, she was. Though he supposed he couldn't blame her for being unaffected by his hard snark; what was he going to do, threaten to kill her? Ha. Nevermind that his skin recoiled at the thought of even narrowing the distance between them.   


"Murder," he said cockily. Always seemed to come out eventually anyway. Better to own it from the get-go and turn it to his advantage. Let everyone know he was a bad, dangerous man before they tried to fuck with him. Make them withdraw and wash their hands of him before he could think about getting attached.   


"Yeah? Who'd you kill?"   


"Maybe it was a lost little girl like you," he said, low and toneless, unable to resist pushing to see just how far her casually unconcerned interest would stretch.

She cocked her head at him, peering closely for a moment. Then tossed her hair with a shake of her head and sat back. "Nah. I don't think you're the type--" She froze, then pulled a grimace. "Though perhaps I'm no longer qualified to be the judge of that. So come on, who'd you kill?"

He shrugged. "Just some guy."  _ David Fredson. Twenty-four.  _ "Girl I mentioned? Party at her place. Got in a stupid drunken fight. Did a few years for manslaughter."  _ Dru, pointing one long, skeletal finger shakily towards the bedroom when he answered her midnight summons to get home. A man's body lying on the floor in there in an unbelievable mess of blood, one of Dru's knives sticking out of his neck. Her stilted explanation that he'd wanted to put his hand up her skirts. Looking at her, vacant and frail and frightened, and knowing that she hadn't meant to kill anyone and wouldn't survive being charged for it. His gut tightening, and him pulling out the knife with a disgusting squelch, rubbing his hands all over it and the room all over the rest of him while he told her to ring the police before his mates returned. The, I did this, okay? Came home and found him with you, flipped my shit.  _ "By the time I got out she'd moved on and I had a reputation that meant no one wanted anything to do with me, so I said up yours too to London and came over here."

"Huh," she said, looking like she was musing on possible supplementary questions.   


"Point is, don't you go thinking I'm any sort of soft person to be around," he growled. "If you weren't dead, I'd think you oughta be staying the hell away from me and my ilk."  _ While hoping she wouldn't listen, you tosser. _

"If you say so," she said in a tone that clearly expressed her disagreement. "Though if I wasn't dead, I would  _ definitely _ have a problem with the drug dealing thing. But hey, ghosts can't be choosy."

"You've got no problems with me being a murderer, but what I do to earn a crust is a hard no?" Couldn't blame her, what with the history he'd just heard. And there was nothing to talk her around for; this… encounter had been doomed before it began. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to debate it with her. She was just so spirited once she got going.   


"You've got nice eyes," she said simply, then dropped her face to her lap for a moment. "Expressive ones. And… tender, somehow.  _ If _ you really did kill someone, and that's not just your fake badass cover story for some lame juvie crime, I'd struggle to believe it was anything other than a horrible accident. Which you obviously paid for. And still are. But  _ drug dealing _ , that's not something anyone does by mistake, like,  _ whoops, mixed up the powdered sugar order with cocaine, guess I'm in the drug trade now. _ It's a choice you've made, and kept making." She turned her face to him. "It doesn't bother you, what happens because of the stuff you deliver?"

"People have a good time, is what happens," he said, offhand, feeling uncomfortably slighted. "Rich bastards shove it up their noses and party all night. What's it to me? Not like I'm moving date-rape pills."

"Do you know that?" she asked, her voice suddenly tight.

"Yes," he growled, offended. Then turned to face her and repeat it more soberly, "Yeah, I do. Got  _ some _ fucking standards. Coke, ecstasy, acid, amphetamines. Cash and paperwork. Won't carry anything else." Okay, and angel dust. But she didn't need to know that, pre-prejudiced as she surely was.

She studied him with narrowed eyes for a moment, then turned away.

"And ganja's too stinky," he added, hoping to lighten the mood again. Regretted having started this argument.   


The corners of her lips twitched in a smile that was more forced politeness than real.

"And I'm not a junky or anything," he told her. "It's only a job. A well-paying one, especially for an ex-con like yours truly. Think anyone else would hire me?"

"You sure about that?" she asked shrewdly, sweeping her gaze over him. "Because you do look kind of blown."

"All right, probably do right now," he muttered. Sighed to himself and ran a hand through the bleeding mess of short curls his well-bleached hair had reverted to thanks to a lack of having been gelled back into place recently. As though fixing his hair would help matters. "Do this run once a month or so," he explained. "And yeah, I party up a bit on the Vegas side, once I've clocked off. Why not? Not everyone who ever has a taste decides that's them from then on. Some of us have a modicum of self-control. Know how to keep it to a time and a place and pick our poisons wisely. You've caught me at the end of an all-nighter or two is all, nevermind a bloody tramp through the desert." Point of fact, his elbow was still aching with fresh bruising, somewhere in the background.   


"Yeah, I guess," she said unhappily. "Sorry, I didn't mean to start giving you shit. Just… you should treat yourself better. Everyone thinks they've got it under control, until the day they don't. And you're…" she paused, expression washing over with self-consciousness. "Kinda good company," she settled on.

"Again, not a good guy," he said, feeling more than slightly incredulous. The girl was insane. Had to be suffering some misplaced saviour complex, all tangled up through what had happened with her ex. "But hopefully a better detective, eh?"

"Yes," she said quickly, jumping on the change of subject. "A great one. Let's get back to that."   


"Right," he said with a short nod. "This Whistler bloke. What do you know about him?"

"Not much," she sighed. "Other than the fact he's a total sleazeball."

"You have any interaction with him, 'sides from the day you burst in on his little scene?"   


"Nope. But he must know that I testified against Liam. I don't think they were like, friends, exactly, or not after they were arrested, at least. But they must have talked at some stage. Or lawyers did, or something. Anyway, I would not be staggered to learn that he blames me entirely for his stint in jail. And I know  _ he _ would be capable of treating someone like that."

He nodded. Yeah, it did sound likely. Maybe more likely than the ex. Selfish, but part of him was hoping it'd turn out to be a false lead. Though, supposed he could still go and beat up this Liam guy anyway. He was owed a retributional visit whether his were the actual hands that had done the killing or not. "Okay, we'll have to see what we can find out there. Who else is on the list?"

"That's it," she said, frowning. "I don't have a big black book of enemies or anything."

"Didn't think you would." God, how could anyone fail to warm to her? That little frown was delightful.   


"There's associates of Whistler's, I guess," she added. "People who were pissed when the supply of drugs and tapes dried up. But they've had years to do anything if they were going to. I lived in the same house for three of them. And everything was supposed to be suppressed and kept off the records. My name and stuff, I mean."

That was it then. Either it was Whistler or Liam, or he ought to be making that police call before any evidence of a random attacker vanished further. How long did DNA last? A long time, if the movies had it right. Years. But they needed to work much faster than that. If it wasn't one of those two personal grievances, someone else might join her out there if they took too long. And he may have had nothing but disdain for the law, but anyone who murdered an innocent woman needed ending, whether via vigilante street justice or a copper with a fancy microscope. "Okay, so… I'll put out some feelers to see what we can uncover about Whistler. You know where Liam's living?"

"Nope, beyond 'somewhere in LA'. Oh, but the church he was on about was… The Friends in Revelation? Reviling? Something with an R."   


He squinted at her vague guesses, then put that puzzle aside with a nod. "If he's not in the phone book, we'll start there." Pre-dawn Friday now... if they hadn't found him by Sunday, they could spy on the church.   


"Plan," she agreed, and they moved on to new topics.

  
  


He reached his place in Santa Monica and pulled the DeSoto into the garage, switching the engine off before he turned to consider her. Felt more real now, suddenly. More than just a weird dream of running and driving through the desert with an illusory girl for company. He had picked up a freaking  _ ghost, _ and brought her home to his house. Had told her things no one else in his life knew about him. Heard things from her he could never have made up, and wouldn't have wanted to. Along with some he had. And now she was sitting in his garage, and he was about to bloody invite her inside, and he didn't know much about the fucking supernatural, but he knew enough to know that invitations carried extra weight with the creatures of it.

"What?" she demanded.

"How old are you?" he asked, and wasn't sure at first what he'd meant.   


She quirked her brows. "Twenty-three?"   


He'd been right earlier; she was far too young. For any of it.   


"You?" she asked.   


"Twenty-eight."   


"Feels like we should have covered that already," she said with a nervous giggle that soon trailed away.

He chuckled. "Yeah." Felt like they'd skipped over a lot of the usual steps, jumping straight from that initial sense of unspoken connection to wherever the hell they were now. He gave his brain a kick, prompting it for what any of those steps were. "Buffy who?" he finally came up with.   


Her eyes widened, then she smiled. "Summers. Buffy Anne Summers." She held out her hand.   


He eyed both it and her face, skin cringing at the idea. Then decided what the hell, and moved his hand towards hers. He'd thought to do it slowly, and did at first, but when his hand was a few inches from hers, a deeper rush of some primal fear kicked in, and he shoved it the rest of the way in a nervous twitch of a grab before it could make him change his mind.   


His fingers went straight through hers, and felt like they were instantly entombed in Antarctic ice along the way. He whipped his hand back and clutched it to his chest, heart hammering beneath it.

She jumped too, though it looked more like his reaction had startled her than any sensation. She pulled her hand away slowly, watching him with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Mm-hmm," he said, rubbing his ice-cold fingers with his other hand. Took a deep breath and made himself relax from where he'd flattened his back to the car's door. "You're, ah, bit cold, is all." He opened and closed his hand a couple of times, relieved when his fingers still flexed normally.   


A snatch of a laugh burst from her before she clamped her lips shut on it. "Sorry, sorry. It was just, ghost of a cold dead body…" She hissed a sigh through her teeth.   


He chuckled a shaky breath out. "There is that."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Her face was still concerned.   


He wiggled his fingers, made a fist, then dropped the hand to his lap. "Yeah. Took me by surprise, was all." Where had they been? Right. "Spike-slash-William Pratt. And don't you bloody tell  _ anyone  _ that part; it's even more of a secret." He lifted his hand again and gave her a small wave with it. "Nice to meet you, Buffy Anne Summers."

"Nice to meet you too, Spike-slash-William Pratt," she said, waving back with a smile.   


They dropped their hands again, and an awkward silence fell.

"Can you get out of the car by yourself?" he wondered out loud.

She looked at her door. "You know, I have no idea."

"How about we don't find out just yet," he suggested.   


"Seconded." She sat back to wait for him to come around and open her door for her.

He let her out, then turned on the garage light and closed and bolted the roller door. Looked back up to find her gazing around with mild curiosity. Crap. The garage was a mess. An empty mess, which shouldn't even be a thing, but it was. It held none of the usual garage-and-car related items, too many bottles waiting for him to be home on a recycling day (many of which had been used as ashtrays), and a trashed old couch that the previous tenants had left behind and that still smelt heavily of their dog. And the rest of his place wasn't much better. Hadn’t planned on bringing someone home. Not someone so… above his station, it would have been called back in the circles he'd grown up in. Course, were he still there the opposite might well be true, which just went to show what a load of bollocks the whole thing was and made him glad all over again to be rid of it. But, old habits. She very obviously had worth where it counted, in that caring heart and uplifting smile, in her generous laugh and the sparkling wit that had snuck out as she'd relaxed into lighter topics (and she was bloody gorgeous to boot), and he had… a barely inhabited rubbish pile of a house, and the life to pair with it.   


Well, he shouldn't be comparing what he had to offer anyway. She'd still be a bloody ghost if he was the king of England, so any thought of impressing her was pointless. And at least she wasn't likely to care whether there was any edible food in his fridge.   


He opened one of the car's rear doors and hauled his overnight bag up from the footwell to the seat; dug into his favourite secret compartment in the driver's seat and cleared it of the cash Jimmy was picking up. Shoved the cash in the bag, picked up her sequined purse carefully and added it to the top, glanced around the backseat for anything he might have missed, then hoisted the bag up and closed up the car.

"It's not flash," he warned her as he went to open the door leading up into the house. "But ghosts can't be choosy, right?" Thought for a second. "Or maybe they can. Could be you can walk straight through the walls to the next place over, spook them into leaving. They've got a spa pool on their deck?" He glanced back from the top of the stairwell.

She shrugged. "Maybe."

Balls, she had to be exhausted. Emotionally, at the least, whatever her body- form ran on. "Anyway, come in," he said quickly, and led the way, flicking on lights as he went. "Make yourself at home, much as anyone can."

She was... harder to see, in the brighter lighting of the house. It didn't seem to land on her right, or really at all; it brightened the room around her to fade her by contrast, so that she became somehow hard to quite get a clear focus on. She'd been so golden and glowing in the dimness of the desert and car. Also, his head was starting to really ache, the light stabbing knives at it sharply enough to make his eyes squint even when he wasn't trying to focus on her. He dropped his bag down in the living room, then turned the desk lamp on and the overhead lights off, and she returned to normal. Normal for tonight, anyway.   


"So..." he started, then rubbed at the back of his neck. Bleeding heck, she was turning him into a right tosser of tangled nerves.   


But she didn't seem to know what to say either, shooting him a tiny smile and sitting down tightly on the far edge of the couch.   


He rushed over to bundle up the bits of dirty washing that were strewn on the other end of it, and threw them into the corner of the bathroom. Returned and sat down on the easychair that stood at a right angle to it, because that seemed less rude than leaving a big obvious gap between them on a shared piece of furniture. Remembered her bag suddenly, and dragged his over to his feet to take it out.

"Do you..."  _ know what's in here? Want me to go through it? _ Picking through the belongings of the dead while they watched you across the coffee table was far from tasteful. But he didn't spare a care for what was  _ tasteful _ , as a rule. Tasty, yes. Decorous, fuck off. And he was glad to have something tangible, a perfectly room-temperature item that formed a link between her spectral presence and firm reality. Besides, it might hold clues. He put the bag down on the table and waved at it. "Want to go through it?"

"Yeah. Yep." She shuffled in her seat, then leaned forward and reached for the bag. Her hand went through it. And the table. She snorted softly and sat back. "But you'd better do the object manipulatage."

"Yeah," he agreed wryly.

Her bag held a wallet, a single door key, a pack of tissues, several bits of makeup, a little foil tray of birth control pills, and a pack of gum. He lay them all out on the table, searched for anything left in the lining, then picked up the wallet again. It was made of bright purple vinyl, tri-folding, a silver butterfly charm dangling from the slider of a zipped coin pocket on one side. He glanced at her for permission, then began going through it methodically, setting each item out on the table as he went.   


No coins. Two bank cards, five loyalty ones, and a couple of scraps of paper so old he couldn't make out the text on them, but that looked like receipts. Two hundred dollars in cash. And a Californian driver's license in the clear plastic window. Buffy Anne Summers. An address in Torrance. Blond hair, green eyes. A beaming smile on her face in the photo. He took it out of its scuffed plastic window to study closer, and a snapshot fell out with it. Trimmed down from a regular photo to fit behind her license. Buffy, standing in a garden, hair shining in loose golden waves in the sun. Arm and arm with an older woman; sophisticated looking, light hair with much more of a curl to it, or set into it, the same awkward posing smile Buffy wore. The familial relationship seemed clear.   


"Your mum?" he asked, turning it to face her.

"Yeah," she said softly. "Just before she died."   


He glanced at the photo again, then back at her in confirmation. "And your dress." It had to be. Exact same shade of yellow, same cut in every way.   


Buffy glanced down at herself, lifting her eyebrows. "Yeah... I hadn't realised. I didn't think I still had it. In fact I'm sure I don't still have it." She smoothed the hem at her knee gently.   


He worked his jaw for a moment, thinking. "Did you like it?"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I think it got lost during a move or something. A while ago." She shrugged, then said brightly, "Maybe I chose it. From a ghost wardrobe of all my lost clothes. If only those green-glittered pumps had been there too." She twisted to look down at her strappy sandals.

He followed her gaze, and realised she was getting hard to focus on again. If it was even her to blame, because fuck, his headache was really starting to gain momentum. He really needed to crash out for a few hours before he could think on all this properly. Looked back at her face, the wall behind her, and decided that no, she was definitely fuzzing and fading beyond the rest of the room.   


He glanced over his shoulder at the eastern windows, and found the sky catapulting towards sunrise, light peach-blue hazing out from the sky over the city. Placed the photo down on the table for her, then got up and went to close the curtains swiftly, trying to smooth the edges down to block out more light, wishing they were thicker. "You're hard for me to see properly, in the light," he told her as he returned. "Might be we need to block it off better."

She nodded without looking up from the photograph.   


Hell, he was such a rude bastard. She probably needed some space to think without him prodding at her constantly. His intriguing adventure was probably her nightmare. "I'm gonna go make a coffee," he announced. "Can't afford to fall asleep before Jimmy's been."   


"Yeah. Sorry, I just..." she said, glancing up before cringing into herself slightly and turning her face back to the table.

"Hey." He dropped down to his haunches beside the coffee table, putting him more in her line of sight.   


She turned her gaze to him, her gorgeous eyes worried and weary.

"It'll be okay, luv," he told her gently.  _ What will, you bloody wanker? _ He couldn't resurrect the dead. Didn't think anyone could. Then again, yesterday he'd not believed in ghosts, so... maybe anything was possible.   


She snickered through her nose, as though she was having the same thought about the inanity of saying anything would be okay, and choosing to be amused by it. "Yeah. Go, make your coffee," she told him quietly, like she was regretting having worried him.

Right. Had meant to give her some space. He nodded softly and went.


	4. We can still be down

He was out of coffee. Threw a couple of teabags into a mug and stood there drumming his fingers on the bench while he waited for the kettle to boil. There was a woman in his living room. There was a ghost in his living room. There was a woman who was a bloody ghost sitting on his couch, and for some insane reason he'd agreed to investigate her murder. There was not enough tea in the world, nevermind fricken china, for this scenario.   


He was still standing there staring at the window when a sound caught his ear, and he jumped, turning towards it, too deep in the abstract of ghosts and girls and murder investigations to have remembered her actual presence.   


She stood in the kitchen doorway - he thought - a headache-heightening blur where the living room should be visible through it - and said something to him in a muted shout. He shook his head hard, trying to clear it, and when he focused on the doorway again... he focused on it. On the empty space of it.   


His feet gravitated to it, in a circle before it, then through it - gaining a faint cold chill - into the living room. She wasn't there either. Looked back at the kitchen, around the living room, then killed the lamp and moved on to the bathroom, upstairs, behind doors, under the coffee table, getting faster and more frantic as he went, closing curtains, staring hard into the dark of the empty broom cupboard. Finally down to the garage, feeling out the passenger seat of his car that had never looked like anyone was sitting on it; over into the backseat, just in case she was hiding back there, teasing him, trying to yank his chain or maybe just wanting a private place to sit and think. Felt clammy, panting slightly, almost frightened now,  _ where the fuck was she, _ trying to fix the image of her in his mind, reassure himself with the details of it, of her voice, she had to  _ exist,  _ had been here, been real, he hadn't slept yet to be dreaming-- Finally remembered her bag. Shot back up to the living room, and found everything there on the coffee table, exactly as it should be. Touched each item, felt the sequins and things on the bag itself again, made himself take a few steadying breaths. Right. Proof. She was here, or had been.   


Noticed how bright the room was now, and crossed to the windows, pulled a curtain back. The sky had settled to early-morning blue; somewhere behind all the buildings that were in the way of the horizon, the sun had risen. Stared at the sky, calming slowly, thinking. Prodding at his weary brain for more information on ghosts; whether they only came out in the nighttime, perhaps. Didn't want to think she was  _ gone, _ that she might have only existed to hand over her task before moving on. She'd come back, surely, once it got dark again. She had to.   


A knock sounded on the front door - the tap---tap-tap-tap pattern Jimmy used - jarring him from his thoughts. Christ, he was too far off his game for this. Shook himself from head to toe and went to open it.

Jimmy looked like a door-to-door salesman, or the promoter for a pyramid scheme. Which served him well, running all over town with his briefcase full of drugs or cash, always stashed underneath the insurance marketing materials he kept in it to complete the look. Spike suspected he might have actually  _ been _ a door-to-door salesman, before switching to this more lucrative career, but you didn't ask personal questions in this game. He was Jimmy, and he picked up and delivered for the boss, and that was all Spike needed to know.   


"Jeesh," Jimmy drawled when he'd opened the door. "Wouldn't want to be seen in public with you right now."

"Wouldn't want to be seen in public with you ever," Spike snarked back, letting him in to the living room. Then remembered her things were still all laid out across the coffee table. Felt all wrong about exposing her private items to a stranger, and a dodgy one at that. But... kind of yearned for some sort of outside confirmation too. He crossed to where his bag waited on the floor by the chair, watching Jimmy's face from the corner of his eye as he squatted down at it.   


Jimmy's attention caught on the contents of the coffee table with casual interest as he moved closer, then snapped sharply away with a turn of his head, evidently having seen enough there to decide it was none of his business. Tosser probably thought he'd downgraded to nicking purses or some shit. But at least his reaction had confirmed that the night's events hadn't been some sort of extremely vivid waking dream brought on by loneliness and a lack of sleep.

Spike stood up and waved the brick of banknotes at him, then led him to the kitchen table for him to start the laborious job of counting it. Hoped it was bloody correct at the first pass, because he was not up to double-checking that much himself right now.   


"Seriously, dude, you look rough," Jimmy told him between piles, nodding at where Spike's elbow jutted off his seat back and twisting his face up in idle revulsion.   


Spike swivelled it around and straightened it to have a closer look. Under the kitchen lights it did look much messier than his initial cursory glance had rated it; blood had smeared out everywhere, darkening as it dried and mixed with a good coating of orange dirt, and the skin was swollen and puffy where he must have landed on it hardest. Same orange dirt that was scuffed all over his black jeans and boots, for that matter. No wonder people kept ragging on his appearance. He sighed and got up to wet a dishcloth for it. Wouldn't do to have Jimmy running back to the big man with some tale about how he was losing control, failing to keep up appearances. The loose cannon of his tongue had him already marked well enough as someone to keep a suspicious eye on. "Yeah," he muttered.  _ Think, for fuck’s sake. _ "Helped a girl out with a flat tyre on the side of the highway this morning. Had one hell of a job getting her spare out from the undercarriage. Barely got home before you were barging your way in here to criticise my state of dress." Reconsidered the dishcloth, and stuck his elbow straight under the tap instead, wincing at the first touch of water before the coldness numbed that background ache of it away. Maybe he should have offered her his elbow to shake. He suppressed a grin.

"And  _ somehow _ her purse ended up in your car?" Jimmy asked, all lewd suggestiveness.   


A flash of anger cut through him, taking him by surprise. Yeah, so he'd sometimes pick up a chick for a mutually meaningless but satisfactory shag when he cut a little loose over there. Didn't mean he'd have done that with  _ her. _ She was... different, was all. But it was the perfect excuse for both his less-than-together appearance and the women's purse currently autopsied across his coffee table, and Jimmy had handed it to him with his assumption. Besides. Jimmy didn't know who he was talking about. "Something like that," he made himself say slyly. "Trying to decide if I mail it back, or give her a call."

"Mail," Jimmy recommended. "Pretty boy like you doesn't need the hassle that comes with repeat engagements. Fuck em and shuck em, I say. Preferably before they wake up, so much uglier than they were the night before."

God, how the hell had he ended up associating with slimeballs like this? Worse, when had he started fitting in with them? Was a time he'd have turned around with a horrified,  _ I beg your pardon, sir? _ , ready to defend the honour of nameless women everywhere. Course, he'd hardly have had the fists to back up his words back then. Now he didn't exactly have the moral standing to issue them. Chicks he took his trousers off for might leave the encounter  _ prettier _ than they'd been beforehand, thanks to that post-orgasm glow, but he still split as soon as the deed was done, refusing to ever  _ sleep _ with one of them. Had learnt his damn lesson where attachments were concerned. Had he fucking ever. And although any deficiencies of his own moral standing had never done much to dissuade him from pointing out another's, now he just felt exhausted and like he wanted this arsehole out of his house as swiftly as possible. "You're right," he made himself say, turning off the tap. "Don't need the hassle. I'll post it." Dabbed his elbow on his t-shirt to dry it, since the thing was already filthy and black cotton didn't stain. He sat back down opposite Jimmy and leant his head on the wall, closing his eyes. "Count faster. I'm fucking shattered."

"Shouldn't have wasted time stopping to dip your wick then," Jimmy sniggered. Then, blissfully, shut up.

  
  


It wasn't until he was showing Jimmy out that the thought drifted back up from the ether his brain had become, and he paused him to ask, "You happen to know anything of a guy who calls himself Whistler?"

Jimmy thought for a moment. "Not offhand."

Gave him a little more; "Went to prison maybe five years back, drugs and porn. Heard he got out recently."

He thought again, then shook his head. "Lot of guys moving in or out for that. What's it to you?"

What was it to him? Not the time to be asking himself that. A task he'd accepted, anyway. Liked to think his word still meant something, whatever his reasons for giving it. "Need to make contact with him about sommat," he said, tone reticent.   


Jimmy eyed him with new speculation. "Thinking to try your hand at being a porn star, pretty boy?" he jested. "Bet it pays less."

Spike just sneered at him. Wasn't in the bloody mood. Ever, where this plonker was concerned.   


"Yeah yeah, I'll ask around," Jimmy conceded, waving a hand in a  _ forget it _ gesture. 

  
  


He finally closed the door behind him, and went straight to the coffee table to repack Buffy’s bag and take it off display. Glanced around the room before he touched anything, peering at the darkest corners. "Didn't mean anything I've said in the last half-hour," he told the empty air. Just in case. "Gotta act the part, you know? And was hardly going to tell that dirtbag about you. Just wanted rid of him as quickly as possible." He listened hard for a moment, then heaved a sigh and started reassembling her wallet, staring at the photo for a few long moments before tucking it away. Stupid to be trying to explain himself. He was what he was, and if she couldn't see that, it didn't matter what she thought anyway.   


Emptied his sock drawer into the one underneath, and reallocated it to holding her bag. Then plucked at his disgusting shirt and decided he had to shower before anything else.   


Eyed the bathroom door after he'd closed it, wondering again whether she could walk through walls and if she was still right here somewhere, muted and invisible but watching. Or if he'd just closed her in there with him. He opened the door again and told the bathroom, "Came here to wash. Now's your chance to leave if you don't want the show." Waited a few moments, then shook his head at himself and closed the door.   


Nearly nodded off in the lull of the warm water, and cut it off when he startled off the edge of doing so for the third time. Got out and wrapped a towel on, then caught sight of his reflection. Christ, he did look blown. Red-eyed, pasty, and bruised to fuck. Maybe it really was time to think about easing back on the self-destructive binge sessions for a bit. Had nothing much on this week, anyway. Body could play some catching up while he worked on the detective thing. It looked like it needed to, if he was going get nicely hands-on with this Liam-Angelus fucker.

Didn't feel right about going straight to bed; if she were watching, he'd hardly be making himself look like a sure bet for actually doing anything to help her. And maybe ghosts  _ could _ be choosy. Could be she'd only left when his back was turned, waltzed through the door to go and track Liam down herself. He threw on some clean clothes, then sat down at his desk. Mashed the power button on his laptop, then rested his face on the desk's one while he waited for it to boot. And promptly fell asleep. 

  
  
  


_ He watched from somewhere near the ceiling, as Buffy danced on the small floor of a much nicer bar than the one she worked at. A man was with her, or trying to be; a great big oaf of a thing, looming over her on two left feet while she twisted and spun with a sinuous grace that kept her always just out of his attempts to touch her. He made her look smaller, daintier, more fragile by comparison, and Spike supposed that had to be the attraction, because there certainly didn't seem to be anything else about the guy. Or maybe the bloke was a decent sort, and he himself was just bitter because he had neither the size nor the decency nor... okay, just didn't have the boldness to get up and try to dance with her instead.   
_

_ He was just sinking into the carpet of the ceiling to get away from the scene, when it hit him that the guy had to be Liam. Liam who was going to-- _

_ He swam through the thickening shagpile, trying to find his way back into the open, but it had him in its grip now, holding him like velcro. Tried to shout her name, bellow a warning, but it was all a stupid fucking dream, wasn't it, so he couldn't make a sound-- _

  
  
  


"Spike!" she shouted,  _ very  _ near, and he jerked into bleary consciousness, peeling his cheek off the desk stiffly.

Blinked slowly, then rubbed his eyes one at a time to keep one fixed on her where she stood beside him. His neck hurt like a bitch.

"Sorry. You just looked way uncomfortable sleeping like that. And hey, I'm back!" she said, far too brightly.

She was back. He blinked a few more times and sat up straighter, then stretched out his arms and shoulders. "So you are." His voice had gone husky.   


Her excitement was dulling rapidly.   


"Relieved to see it, luv," he added.

That brought her smile back a little. He looked around the dim room, then got up and stumbled through to the kitchen. Pulled an edge of the curtain there back far enough to peer out through, and found the sky painted orange over the sliver of ocean that glimmered between the houses across the street. Sun must have just set. He smoothed the curtain back down and asked her, "Back from where?"

"Nowhere," she said with a shrug. "I started going all see-through, sort of, so I was coming to tell you, then I was opaquing up again but things had moved around and you'd fallen asleep on your desk. So I figure I missed something in between?"   


"Something like all the daylight hours," he told her. Stretched again, bones grumbling and muscles burning in that good, waking-stretch way, then dropped his arms to his sides and moved over to the kettle. Those teabags were still waiting in his mug. "Sorry, I meant to make a start on the research. Guess I needed to sleep first."

"You should try doing it in a bed sometime," she teased, then bit her lip and looked away, slightly shamefaced.

Oh no, he wasn't having that. "Pfft. Everyone does that," he sneered jestingly. "Much more individual, me."

She chuckled quietly. "You can go back to sleep though, if you want? I can wait, I guess." It was a reluctant offer, the moody set to her jaw saying plainly she was only giving it under the duress of her circumstance.

"Gracious of you," he muttered. Was feeling more firmly himself again as he finished waking up, all the strangeness of last night's events settled and absorbed after being slept on.   


"Like you wouldn't be in a hurry," she snapped, her patient politeness hitting a sudden end. "My body's probably being nibbled on by foxes or something, while the person responsible swans around thinking they've got away with it!"

He shivered, rubbing his arms. Was going to have to talk to her about keeping her distance when she got all ticked off, or at least put some warmer clothes on. Turn the thermostat up, maybe. "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it," he grumbled at her. Truth be told he was almost as anxious to solve this, but he wasn't going to let the stroppy bint boss him about, ghost chills or no. He rubbed his face, taking his time while she fumed quietly, then returned to the laptop.   


Opened the web browser to a search engine, then wondered where to start. Felt like looking her name up, but maybe not while she was standing right there, staring over his shoulder from a careful distance. Goosebumps were springing back up on his forearms already from her still-tense proximity, but he didn't want her to move away. "Hang on," he told her, and went to fetch one of the kitchen chairs, plonking it down beside his own. "Sit."

She did.   


"Last name?" he asked, fingers poised over the keyboard where he'd got as far as  _ Liam...   
_

She opened her mouth to answer, then froze and slowly closed it again, looking down at her lap and frowning hard.   


"What, you're having second thoughts now?" he asked sharply. "Too bad if you bloody are, I'm still going to find out who did this to you-"

"It's not that," she snapped, turning angrily defensive eyes on him.   


He shivered with that strange mix of ice chill and hot thrill.

"I can't remember, okay?" she continued after a beat. "It's like I reach for it and there's just this... black hole." She made a furious little growl of a huff through her clenched teeth, turning her face away. "Fuck, what the hell is happening to me?" she muttered to herself.   


"Hey," he murmured, lifting a hand to reach for her somehow before he remembered the insubstantial cold of her and held it sort of quivering in the air. "It's okay, pet. We'll find it somewhere. Don't fuss yourself about it." Thought for a moment. "Maybe things are still coming back? Dunno what the process is for becoming a ghost-" He had to pause to snort a breath of disbelieving amusement at the whole situation. "But maybe you'll remember more once you've had some time to get used to it. Like you've got a post-death hangover that needs to cool its heels a bit before you remember everything from the life before. And it's got to be a bloody shock."

She sighed and turned her eyes to him. "Yeah." Shook her head. "It  _ bloody  _ is. I'll try to book a raincheck for the freakout."

He nodded encouragingly and turned back to the screen, deleting Liam's name. Needed to find her something more promising, get that smile back on her face. Before she sodding froze him solid. "We'll find the church," he decided. "Not like his address was likely to be printed up handily on the internet anyway. Or not anywhere I'd know how to access." Though he could enlist some help with that, if it came to it. There were people who could find anything in there with the right handshake.   


He loaded up the phone directory, found the category for religious institutions. Scrolled to the T's, looking for _The;_ flicked back to the F's when he realised any 'The' was ignored for sorting purposes. _Friendship Circle of Worship._ _The Friends in Jehovah. The Friends in Jesus._ That had to be confusing. _The Friends of the Redeemer-_

"That's it! she burst out, leaning forwards to poke at the screen. Then jumping back as her finger went through it.

They both peered at the screen where her finger had entered it, but it didn't seem to have had any effect.

"He was going on about how he was finding his redemption there," she added, folding her hand away under the opposite arm. "Must be their big theme."

"Right. Good." He grinned at her, then read the listing. It didn't give any more than a phone number, fax, address. Maybe God didn't cover the cost of web hosting. He ran the name through the search engine to check, but found nothing relevant.   


Searched around the desk until he found a blank envelope back (and christ, there was too much half-read mail here; he'd better check his letterbox tonight to make sure no one was coming to cut off his electricity or anything for bills he'd forgotten about) and copied the phone number and address down. Across the other side of the city somewhere, though he didn't recognise the street.   


Glanced at the time on the laptop, then slid the phone forward over the desk. "We'll find out when their services are. We can stake out the next one, watch for him." Or he could, if it was during daylight hours, he supposed. Was going to need more of a description, in that case.

Buffy lifted a hand to her mouth, toyed with her bottom lip for a moment. An urge to snatch her hand away and press his lips there instead rushed tingling through his gut; wondered if her lips would feel cold, or icy enough to burn with frozen heat. If she'd suck out his soul or dive into his body to take it over or freeze his flesh into literal ice and kill him. If she'd kiss him back.   


"Then what?" she asked.   


Indeed. But she wasn't talking about kissing. "Then we go have ourselves a little chat with him," he said darkly.

"I don't actually want to throw anyone off a building," she muttered with a lopsided frown. "Tempting as that may be. I need to make them confess. To the  _ police _ ," she said firmly.

He blew a breath out through his teeth. "Whoever it is," he started, because she was obviously still hoping this Liam wanker would turn out to be innocent, and fair enough. She'd loved the bastard. Probably still did, in some way. Fuck knew he'd never quite been able to convince himself to hate Dru enough to simplify things. "They deserve a lot worse than what they'll get from the legal system."

"Maybe," she shrugged. "But that doesn't mean I should be the one to give it to them." She pressed her lips together for a second. "Sorta not feeling like adding to my sin tally right now, for some reason. And if- if it  _ was _ an accident," she amended, probably avoiding voicing the possibility that it was her possibly-still-loved-ex, "then being made to face up to it would be punishment enough, wouldn't it? Especially if it came in the form of my ghost harassing them down to the police station." She sat up straighter on her seat and folded her hands in her lap, then closed her eyes and schooled her face to blankness before opening them slowly onto him, wider and wider, suddenly as cold and emotionless as death.  _ "Why did you do it, Spike?" _ she whispered in a voice as creepy as all get.

" _ Jesus fuck," _ he heard himself hiss under his breath, leaning away from her and pressing his arms close against his torso. He was no sodding pussy, but no living man could have looked into those horribly dead eyes and heard her whisper from beyond the graveless grave without every cell in his body recoiling wildly. Was too easy to forget what she was when she seemed so lively, which only made the reminder now all the more horrifying.

She cracked up into giggles, dropping back in her seat again.   


"Don't ever fucking do that again," he gritted out. "You're one terrifying bloody wraith, Summers. Christ."   


Her laughter died, and her eyes returned to his looking slightly stricken. "Am I? I- Sorry," she winced. "I didn't mean to  _ actually _ scare you."

"Startled, pet," he said tightly. " _ Not _ scared. And yeah, I reckon you could give someone nightmares enough to torment them for the rest of their miserable life, nevermind into a confession. They'll be  _ begging _ the judge to punish them, and probably every priest they can find to as well."

She snorted softly. "Well, that does make me feel slightly less disempowered here. But I'm not, like, disturbing you too much, am I? You're not just going along with this because you think I'm going to... I don't know, do some evil ghost thing if you refuse?" Before he could respond, her face flooded with new distress. "Oh god, I'm not all hideously dead-looking, am I?" She was on her way across the room before she'd finished talking, running for the bathroom with her hands feeling out her face.

He let out a quiet huff of a relieved laugh, and jumped up to follow her.   


She stood in front of the mirror, tilting her head at different angles as she studied herself, then turned around and looked back over each shoulder to see more. Turned back to the mirror and leaned close to it, staring into her own eyes, calmer, but still not fully convinced.   


He leant against one side of the door frame, watching her reflection. "You're the most fetching ghostie I've ever seen, luv," he told her, straight. "And no, I'm not just helping you because you might turn all Evil Dead on me if I don't." Why  _ was  _ he helping her, then? Because it was the only decent thing to do, mostly. But he didn't do decent. He shrugged and tried for honesty. "Felt for you, was all. Injustice of the thing. Bloody disrespectful, is what it is." Hell, he was itching to rant about it. He squashed it back down for now. "And I was bored," he said carelessly. "Long drive, quiet week ahead. Why not do someone a good turn for a change? Gotta keep the crowd guessing."

She watched him through the mirror for a few long beats, her expression inscrutable. Then turned around to face him, leaning back against the sink and bracing her palms on the lip of it.   


He found himself staring at her hands, wondering at the way they didn't simply go through things. Wondering whether she could leave any sign of her presence on them. On misted glass, perhaps, or in something very light, like dusted flour.   


"Most fetching out of how many ghosts?" she asked thoughtfully.   


"All right, of a sample size of one," he said, smiling ruefully. "Most fetching  _ woman, _ then. If you prefer." God, she quite possibly was. She was objectively pretty, sure, and must know it, but more than that... she seemed to look at him differently from anyone else who'd crossed through his life recently. Like she wasn't aiming to screw him over, but wouldn't ignore any shit, either. Like she just assumed he must be some sort of better guy than he was, even though she knew otherwise.  _ Yeah, because she's already dead, so what does she have to fear from acting otherwise? _ And hadn't he been bloody responding to it in kind, agreeing to help her out, trying to cheer her up, as though he'd just been waiting for a damsel in distress to come along and pull out a chivalrous side he didn't have? She probably  _ was _ planning to screw him over, while he was blinded by those sparkling eyes. And she was no sodding damsel. Probably closer to demon. No, angel. A good old fashioned biblical-style one, sent to freeze him solid for his many sins.   


She looked down, almost embarrassed to be pleased. And yeah, what the fuck had he told her that for? Though, guessed he had owed her one for last night's vomiting disgust. And it didn't matter anyway. Let her feel pretty while her body-- He grimaced, disturbed anew at prodding the memory.   


"Not what I was angling for, but I'm not about to turn down a compliment today," she said with a self-conscious smile. "So you've never seen a ghost before? You're not, like, an extra-sensory expert or- or a psychic or something?"

Oh. "Nope," he confirmed. "Popped my otherworldly-experience cherry last night."

"Okay," she said, nodding to herself. "That's good. So other people should be able to see me too. And you could hear me once you'd, you know, poked, so when we find our person they shouldn't have any trouble there."

"Imagine they'll be able to feel you, too," he added. Fidgeted with his lip in his teeth, wondering how much to say, given she didn't seem to have noticed the effect she could have even with a bit of space between them. Could ignore a touch of a chill to have her this close. "The air seems a little cooler around you," he settled on. "Moreso when you're fired up."

"It does?" she asked blankly.

He lifted one shoulder. "Little bit. Plus the whole icy-on-contact part. You could put on a wonderful terror of a haunting, luv."

"Good," she said again.   


"And," he said suddenly, remembering, "Jimmy - pick-up man, came over this morning - noticed your purse lying around. So we also know you're not a figment of my imagination."

She quirked her eyebrows at him, taken aback. "Were you worried I was?"   


He snorted. "Might never have seen a ghost before, but I've seen more than enough people hallucinating all kinds of weird shit. Could have messed up my sugar with the cocaine after all." He winked at her, then pushed off the door frame. "I'll give that church a buzz."


	5. Still fun to be around

He jotted down the times of the next public services at The Friends of the Redeemer (Sunday morning, Sunday night), filled her in on having put out a feeler with Jimmy regarding Whistler, and made a couple of calls to put out more. Tried searching the internet for anything on him, but wasn't going to get anywhere without a full name. Which again she couldn't remember, fuming in a silent chill about the fact. Given that for now, their best next move seemed to be him rocking up to church on Sunday morning with his eyes and ears open (and the fact that he really wasn't cut out for this whole sitting still in front of a screen, scrolling through useless, non-fiction, and badly-written text, which was just one reason why, he reminded her, he wasn't really a sodding detective), he closed the lid on the laptop and asked her what else she wanted to do.

"What do you mean?" she asked.   


"Got till sun up to burn, don't we? No sense staring at this thing any longer. Next step will happen when it happens. Someone'll call, or I'll put on a Sunday shirt and hope I don't catch fire when I step onto holy ground. Maybe I should scope the crowd out from the car. Would hate to cause a scene."

"No you wouldn't," she guessed, watching him speculatively.   


He snickered. "No, I wouldn't. Be a lark, wouldn't it?"   


She smirked to herself. Then asked, "Do you do this with everyone? The whole, 'I'm so evil' routine?"   


"It's not a routine," he sneered. Then attempted to correct that to, "I'm not doing anything." He wasn't, was he? Joking about how sinful and sordid he was didn't mean anything other than that he unashamedly was. Wasn't like he needed to prove anything to her.

"Okay," she said, making it sound like  _ have it your way. _ "So what do you want to do?"   


"I asked first," he shot back.   


"You sound like a two-year-old," she informed him.

"And?"

She laughed, and he had to join in. She kept making everything seem so  _ light _ , just by being here. Even though they were sitting in the dimness of a single lamp. Her smiles were infectious and her laughter even more so, and the crazy bint still did both so easily despite recent events and current circumstance. He was beginning to wish he'd met her differently. Sooner. Except that she'd hardly have given him the time of day, and he'd never have let his guard down like this, and they wouldn't be here together now. But maybe she'd still be alive, somewhere out there.   


Anyway. No sense in dwelling on what wasn't. She was here now, and whatever any of it could have meant was doomed before it got started, so he may as well throw - keep throwing - caution to the wind and enjoy it for what it was. Like she seemed to be.   


"We could watch a movie?" he offered. Wasn't exactly full of entertainment options here, but he did have a ruddy big TV upstairs. And his first impulse of a suggestion for amusing themselves (going out to spook people) felt kinda rude. She wasn't his pet ghost.   


"What movies have you got?" she asked eagerly.   


Right. Good call on the not dragging her out to run riot. She probably felt like hunkering down somewhere even a tiny fraction familiar, given that she'd just lost... well, everything solid. Which she seemed to be taking in stride so far with a remarkable sense of... of sangfroid, he supposed, which was perhaps turning out to be just too fitting a term, but she had to be feeling much more shaken underneath. And he... he didn't really feel inspired to do anything other than sitting down to get to know her better. "Heaps," he told her, getting up. "Come and have a browse. I haven't even shown you around properly, have I?"

"I guess I kind of disappeared before your best manners caught up." Her eyes glittered again, more than playful enough to shout that she was going to continue taking the piss out of his every attempt to act rude or otherwise. From anyone else it might have had him backing off with a cold glare, but she kept making him want to laugh more and ham it up.

"I'm afraid you did, ma'am. Please, allow me to make amends," he said smoothly, and led her on a tour of the rest of the house. 

  
  


The TV took up the bulk of the wall facing his bed, with DVDs filling a few of the shelves beside it. After showing her the rest of upstairs (empty second bedroom, bathroom, a cupboard) he flopped down against the headboard while she browsed the choices. And swiftly chose Beetlejuice.

"What? It's research," she chirped in response to his disbelieving look. "Or are you too  _ scared _ to watch a ghost movie with me?"

"Shove over," he told her, grinning, and she stepped over from the shelves to let him grab it. "We're watching Poltergeist after. And any others I have."

He put the disk in, picked up the remotes and turned around to find her standing awkwardly beside the king-size bed.   


"Sit your bum down," he ordered, flopping back down on his side. "I'm hardly going to try anything, frosty."

"Guess not," she agreed, looking more neutral about the fact than he'd expected. In fact, her expression could almost be leaning towards hidden disappointment.

Fuck, he was an arse. Had to really suck to realise sex was off the table for the foreseeable. Unless she found herself a ghost boyfriend. Or... presumably she could still take care of herself.  _ That _ was a much more pleasing image, and oh could they have some fun with all the tantalising restriction of not being able to make physical contact. Could she feel the movement of air, the touch of a feather? Had she ever played at voyeurism?   


"Not yet, anyway," he purred at her slyly as she settled herself down on the other side of the bed. Then hefted the DVD remote and occupied himself with starting the movie while she flashed through several stages of surprise, interest, and flustered nerves. Right. Better back off, balance that thin line between making her feel wanted and making her feel uncomfortably pressured. As though she couldn't freeze his gonads into a pair of clinking marbles if he got them out uninvited. But she was obviously feeling - what was the word she'd used? - disempowered by her situation, and the last thing he was interested in was some sort of false pretension of those types of feelings in return for his help. Wanted-- no, ached, suddenly, for her to be enjoying his company in more than just an any-port-in-a-storm sense. And she'd sort of been seeming like maybe she was, unless she was just like this with everyone. Which was more likely. And he knew was a bloody fool where women were concerned.   


"I'm not making you too cold, am I?" she asked, cutting into his meanderings. "Because I can move over more. Or you can get under the covers, without it being weird." She nodded at his forearms, where the fine hairs on them stood up at the chill to the air.

"Nah." He shook his head. "Turned the thermostat up anyway. It'll be hot in here soon."  _ And then you can move closer, if you want.   
_

She nodded, holding her lip in her teeth, and they let the opening of the movie fill the silence.   


They watched the Maitlands drive off a bridge and wake up as ghosts on the screen, and threw about increasingly ridiculous ideas for how she could have ended up dead in the desert by non-nefarious means. Bored of that, she asked him about England, what was it like, did everyone drink tea all day and say  _ 'allo, guv'nor, tally-ho? _ He had to admit to the tea part. Then found himself telling her too much, impulsively answering her innocent curiosity with anything she wanted to know, reminding himself, every time he caught himself at it and quailed, that it didn't matter, she'd probably vanish as soon as the mission was complete, and the least he could do was entertain her with tales of his embarrassments in the interim. Besides. It felt good, to talk to someone. To  _ really _ talk, sharing things he usually kept well-hidden, and hearing her share in kind.   


She asked about his parents, and he told her how his father had died before he could remember him and that his mother had followed him several years ago. She told him about coming home to find her mum dead, and all the horror of it, so he told her how he'd still been in jail when Mum succumbed to lung cancer, and that it was only a different type of horror when you weren't there to see it for yourself. And guilt. God, did he loath himself for that; for having abandoned the one person who'd ever truly loved him, by taking a fall for one who never would. But he couldn't tell her that bit. There were limits left. So he asked about her dad, and she explained about the divorce and subsequent move out to Torrance, and he said the bloke sounded like right useless git and could they add him to the retributional hauntings list? And she laughed and said nope, he was in... some part of Europe? and thus too inconvenient. Then laughed again, with more strain, and explained that it wasn't that there was another one of those stupid black holes in her memory sitting over 'somewhere in Europe', but that that was all he'd bothered to tell her the last time he left her a message. He scratched about for a lighter topic, wanting to wipe the strain from her tone, and ended up telling her about the time he'd...

The movie finished and he shoved in another one, then another, and they talked until the sky began to lighten with the first hints of the approaching dawn.

She sighed, lying on her back beside him and raising her hands up towards the ceiling to study. "I'm going to vanish again, aren't I?"

"Think so," he sighed, his head grumbling back at him again when he tried to hold a focus on her face. What day was it?  _ Saturday _ . Told himself to be consoled by the fact that he should have one more easygoing night with her before the reality of the reason she was here intruded.   


"Hey, um, thanks," she said shyly. "For the movies. Company. I've had a good time... You know, I'll just shut up before I make this more weird and awkward."

"Thanks yourself," he said, with a smile that felt bittersweet. "See you tonight, yeah?"

"Yeah," she agreed softly. "I should, um, go stand in the hall or something. Not be freaky."

Crap, she could probably see his wincing squint of a building headache as he tried to keep watching her. "Don't?" he asked quietly. "I'll close my eyes."  _ And then you'll stay, forever and ever, as long as I don't open them. _ "Need more sleep anyway." He closed his eyes, listening close instead.   


"Okay," she murmured.   


The room slowly brightened behind his closed lids, then grew from slightly chill to a more neutral room temperature. But he didn't open his eyes, so she was still there as he fell asleep. 

  
  


He woke up with a pounding headache, dry-mouthed and clammy-skinned; the thermostat was still boosted up to ghost-cuddling degree. Not that they'd  _ cuddled _ , but they had relaxed into a close lie that felt very near it. He stumbled from the bedroom, mashed buttons on the house's thermostat, and fought free of his rough, itchy clothing on the way to the shower. Sat down under the cold, blasting water and felt it slowly temper down the throbbing heat between his temples, then soothe his skin to pale numbness and ease the dry, cracked-skin feeling in his nose before it could decide to open up into weeping.   


Stepped out of the bathroom into the arid desert of the house again, and saw for a moment in his mind's eye the lonely plains of the I-15, heat shimmering off the road and a scavenging bird riding a thermal high into the sky. His stomach churned and roiled, and he had to close his eyes, taking short breaths through his nose, willing it to stay down. It didn't matter. What was out there. It'd been too late to matter since well before he got there. Was already a gruesome thing that had long lost any connection to the girl whose eyes sparkled brighter than sunbeams when she laughed and who would be back as soon as that shitty solar orb fell from the sky.   


Got his stomach quelled eventually by remembering that, and threw clothes onto his rapidly drying body before bailing from the house in the DeSoto.   


Drove around aimlessly for a bit, still peculiarly out of sorts, giving the familiar purr of the engine time to set things more to rights. Eventually pulled over along the coast, feeling more stable, and glad to have got this delayed burst of derailment at the macabre nature of the whole bizarre situation out of the way while she wasn't watching. Then realised he wasn't far from Torrance, and decided to accept the subconscious hint and continue on to it.   


Stopped across the road from what had once been her house, and tried to imagine her coming down the path to check the mailbox. And crud, he still hadn't done that himself yet. But it was the weekend now. No one would be coming to disconnect anything until Monday.   


And she wouldn't be coming out of this door ever. Fuck, what the hell was he doing? Probably had all the curtains twitching, sharp-looking bastard that he was, staring too intently at a house he had no business at from a dust-coated wild thing of an equally sharp-edged classic car. Fuck 'em. But he still oughta get going before someone rung it in. The DeSoto was already bordering on too distinctive for work use, without any added police attention attaching itself to it. He was  _ never  _ bloody trading it for the sort of generic background shit Jimmy constantly switched between. He turned the key and got back on the road.   


Headed east across the city, and did a cruise-by of tomorrow's church. Big parking lot out back, plenty of traffic passing. Easy spot to tail someone from.   


It was barely afternoon yet. Supposed he should make some sort of effort to search for information, instead of this pushing everything off until tomorrow. Even if he was having... not second thoughts, but vague hesitations, about how quickly they needed to solve it. But had sworn to help her, not mope around aimlessly waiting for nightfall.   


He headed to Robson's bar, a gloomy little den of a place that turned a blind eye to the business conducted in it. As long as they got their tips, that was. Which made it an excellent place to pick up tips of the other kind, if you were known right. Which he was.

Waited until Billy lowered the glass he was cleaning and re-cleaning to give him a long-suffering headshake and look of wary acknowledgement, then Spike sloped through to the courtyard out back. It was a tiny, grimy, concrete box that would've rated below a prison cell for aesthetics, were it not for the open sky far above, but it had privacy in its favour, so the heap of cig butts in its metal bucket of an ashtray attested to far more use than it deserved. Nicotine, right. Abruptly famished for it. He felt out his pockets, coming up empty but for his wallet and keys. Froze, remembering where his lighter had got to. Pictured it still standing there, a little flame in the dark, the glowing of a single memorial candle. Something to make that crevice a fraction less lonely. Or perhaps a beacon, a tiny flare of hope, the physical marker of a promise made.

He'd grab a disposable lighter when he picked up some smokes. Not right to replace the zippo. It was part of him still, standing vigil for the rest of him. Sure, it would have long since burnt dry, if it had even stayed standing when he'd bolted, and one little flame wouldn't show anyway on the bright sunny day it was now, but its bright silver might glint in the sun perhaps. It  _ meant _ something.

"Spike," Billy said flatly, joining him in the concrete pen. Reluctant, annoyed at being summoned out here by the likes of him, but unwilling to tell him to bugger off, on the off-chance the big boss had sent him.   


"Lovely day out here, ain't it, Billy?" he asked with a smarmy grin. "Really makes me appreciate what you haven't done with the place." He waved a hand at the rear wall, six feet across from the door.   


"Tell it to the manager," Billy said tonelessly. "What do you want?"   


Yeah, his heart wasn't in this shit today either. "Information. Guy calls himself Whistler." He watched Billy's face obliquely; nothing. "In the smutty movie business, among other things. Recently out on parole, or so I heard."   


Billy watched him for a few beats, then his brows drew down. "That's all you've got?"   


Yeah, this was fucking pointless. He was going to have to beat it out of Liam.  _ Before _ he took him apart for what he'd done to Buffy. And what he might have. "Yep," he sighed.   


"What's the answer worth?" Billy asked, face shrewd now. Mildly interested, but trying not to show it.   


An urge to hit the greasy wanker for asking him to put a price on something like this - on  _ her  _ \- gripped him by the fists, but he forced them not to move from where they lay open against his jeans. It was just another request for a connection. Couldn't lose his cool and bring down a world of unnecessary complications just because this idiot didn't know what he was asking for. "Two grand," he said instead. "Four for an address that checks out." High enough to make Billy drool; not so high that he'd suspect him of scamming him. And a hell of a lot less than he'd be willing to put on it.   


"I'll see what I can do," Billy said, still reserved, but clearly making plans.   


"Offer's good for the next twenty-four hours or so," Spike told him with a nasty smirk. Then gave him his number and left.

Found some smokes in the car, lit one with that bollocks of a lighter again while he trickled his way back towards home. Felt like he should be doing other things, doing more, hunting his way through the streets kicking arse and asking after names; becoming a burning flame of vengeance tearing through the city's underbelly, racing towards its culmination in a bloody inferno of white-hot violence on its target. Something. But going home to linger near the phone was far more sensible, and the fucking heat out here was doing his head in, baking down through the black body of the DeSoto, open windows doing nothing when more heat was rising off the asphalt to flow in through them. His skin itched restlessly in it, the bones beneath becoming heavy and bruised-feeling.   


He pulled into a gas station for smokes, filling the tank up while he was there, then headed for home. 

  
  


She wasn't there, of course, but the laptop was, so he punched her name into the search bar. Found nothing. For all that people effen raved about everything being on the internet these days, it hadn't proved much damn use in this endeavour. Well, okay, except for the church. Which he could have found in the phone book, but hey. It was still looking like their best shot.

He leant back from the screen and scrubbed at his face. Still tired. Checked the time, sky; hours to go before sunset. Should probably try to get some more sleep, now that the house had cooled off a bit, if he was planning to stay up all night and then for Sunday services. And then... well, they'd see then. No sense in thinking too far ahead. He shook himself and went upstairs before he could nod off where he was and get told off for it again. Set the alarm on the bedside table, took off his shirt, and lay down. 

  
  


_ A thousand silver rainbows shimmered and refracted from above and below and all around them, twinkling in time to a distant, gentle music. _

_ He slid his arms over her shoulders from behind and hugged her to him, and she was all warm and soft in his arms, molten, pliant, swaying with him slowly, resting her head back against his collarbone with a tender hum of pleasure, and he was all molten and gooey too, blissed out on something that wasn't illegal but really ought to be, sodding dangerous emotion that it was. But oh god, he didn't care; this bird could shove her hand through his chest later and tear his heart out just to spit on it if she fancied, because he wasn't fucking running from this, didn't want any damn life where he'd thrown this away, so he'd tear his chest open himself and let her do as she wilt.   
_

_ "I think I'm falling in love with you," he told her in a breathless whisper of a laugh, dizzy with it, free-floating through space, perhaps, but disregarding a detail so insignificant while she was in his arms. _

_ Then a fire alarm screamed into his eardrums, shattering glass in every direction, exploding the rainbows into darkness, and a deep, deep sadness swooped in with it, because she was gone and he knew suddenly that none of it had been real. _

  
  


The alarm clock blared through his dreamspace and ripped him from it, then became only the god-awful beeping that it was. He smashed at buttons until it fell silent, then groaned and rolled over onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling and trying to remember what the fuck he'd set the thing for, disorientated and... missing something... having lost something, just before waking. Someone. Well, what was fucking new? Almost rolled over to go back to sleep, aching with a raw and heavy sense of a loss so big nothing else could matter beside it, sick already of whatever bullshit he was supposed to be getting up for. But then--  _ Buffy. _ Sat up hastily, wide awake as the past two days - or, nights - raced back. Twisted to look around at the clock; half an hour till sundown. Right. He'd wanted time to... to look at least a little more together than he must've done when she'd come back to find him crashed out on the desk.   


He jumped up, tore downstairs, slicked and combed his hair back in the bathroom. Checked the time again, then wondered how he was going to kill twenty-five minutes of it without wearing holes in the floor. And how the hell to greet her without sounding like an arse. And if this t-shirt looked okay, or if he should put something on over it... Fuck, the thermostat. He dialled it right up again, then found a long-sleeved button-down to put on until it got too hot. Twenty-three minutes. Dammit, he should have thought ahead; picked up some new DVDs, other entertainment for her... what other entertainment options there might be for someone who was incorporeal he didn't know, but he could have come up with something if he'd given himself more time, surely. Maybe she'd want to go out tonight anyway. Had to be sick of his place by now. Probably getting bored with him too. So maybe he should... take her for a drive? Beach walk?   


He stopped, almost mid-pace, in the living room, with a queasy, sinking feeling falling through him. What the hell was he  _ doing?  _ Acting like this was... like she was coming to hang out with him. Like he  _ wanted  _ her to. Like he...   


_ I think I'm falling in love with you  _ filtered back from the dream he'd just had, and he had to sit down. Dropped his face into his hands and rubbed hard at his eyes for a minute, cursing himself in a litany made solely of,  _ fuck. _   


He liked her. Liked-her liked her.  _ Fuck fuck fuck. _ He... all right, so he didn't do  _ like. _ Never had. Had never seen the point in it. Love and hate were the fire and ice life was made of, and everything in between was just existing. And he didn't want to just  _ exist. _ He was only too ready to throw himself balls-to-the-wall after something much greater, to burn or freeze with it as he may.   


But she  _ didn't _ exist, in any usual sense of the words. He could love her with all the desperate fire his heart could summon, and she'd still be a cold shade he couldn't hang onto. This was a temporary thing, a doomed before it began thing, a side trip into a crazy, exhilarating affair that was going to tear parts of him away when it ended. God, he was such an idiot. Letting himself get to know her, telling himself the impossibility of it going anywhere meant that it didn't matter what they shared, when really it had only removed all of his defences and encouraged him to open himself up to feelings that had already sunk their hooks deep inside him.  _ Fuck. _   


He should leave. Run while he still could. Tell her they'd meet up tomorrow night, when he had news on Liam, and go get her thing sorted so she could be at peace and buried and move on or what have you.   


Unless she didn't? Maybe they were wrong to assume she was only here to complete her mission. Maybe she just wasn't ready to be gone yet. Maybe she'd stay, if he... no, that was a stretch too far. He had nothing to bloody offer her. She was only here because she needed his help.  _ Remember that. _ This stupid fantasy was a one-sided thing, certainly. But maybe... she might not be ready to move on anyway. She hadn't sounded too keen on the idea, out in the desert. Hadn’t wanted to just cease existing entirely. And maybe... she didn't  _ have  _ to be buried, if a lack of anyone doing so would give her a reprieve from whatever came next. They could take care of Liam, and anyone else who was involved; take care of them so no one would ever have to know. Then get to know each other more.  _ And then she'll what, fall for your sinful charms? _ No, it was ridiculous. There were probably other ghosts out there she could hook up with, if she stuck around. Well, he could try, anyway. Would. Wasn't going to fucking turn tail and run without giving it everything he had. Wasn't going to spend the rest of his life saying,  _ well, there was a woman I thought I could have been in love with, but I was too scared to find out. And not because she was a ghost. _ _   
_

Then she came down the stairs, peering ahead into the living room anxiously, and he clicked that from her point of view he'd probably mysteriously vanished from the bed, and he jumped up full of remorse for doing that to her when everything had to be unsettling enough without him adding to it, and he realised that all of his mental wrestling was pointless, because he was already in far too deep to run.

"Sorry, luv," he told her quickly. "Didn't mean to vanish on you."

She shrugged one shoulder, the cheekily playful look that kept enthralling him deeper sneaking back onto her face. "Sorry, but I do believe I did it better," she said, lifting her chin in faux haughtiness. Then grinned and asked, "So what are you up to?"

  
  



	6. You give me just a taste so I want more

He would love her, he decided, like they had no tomorrow. Like tomorrow would never come. Which it wouldn't, not for her with her endless night, but the time when they had to do something about Liam would. But that wasn't yet, so he pushed it out of his brain and threw himself full-throttle into the now. If this was all there might be, he was damn well going to make the best of every second of it. The risk of losing more was infinitely preferable to having risked nothing and gained less.   


He offered to take her for a drive, to the beach, out on the town, anywhere, but she confessed that she didn't want to go anywhere where she might bump into someone too closely and,  _ like, freeze them into a heart attack or something.  _ And that she'd seen enough of the interior of his car.   


So they walked down to the beach, bypassing the pier with its amusement park and crowds, cutting a quick path down to the ocean's edge on the south side of it, then walking far along it at the very edge of the waves. He'd neglected to put his boots on, somewhere, so let his jeans soak up half the ocean from the bottom hems, because what did it matter? He had plenty more, and with the sea swooshing in and out to wipe the sand clean, neither of them were leaving footprints. In the white-churned seafoam of each rolling lip it was impossible to even tell that it wasn't parting for her, and that seemed to relax her from the caution that had sprung up when he'd suggested going out.

The sea shimmered with starlight and reflections from the shore, dancing and singing its songs of wave and water on sand and stone, the background rumble of the city on a Saturday night adding another layer of music on their left. They passed people walking dogs and groups drinking and eating pizza on the sand, but they were each a distant thing far back from the ocean's wet spray, and he kept himself between them and her.   


And they talked. Talked-laughed-played-skipped. He threw rocks she pointed out for him, and pocketed a pinkish one to carry home for her. Tried to do a cartwheel, and fell on his arse in a sandy bundle of both their laughter, then watched her do several with effortless precision. Told her it was an unfair contest when she wasn't subject to the same laws of gravity, and she nearly slapped his shoulder before remembering and jerking her hand back then quickly widening the space between them. So he reattempted the cartwheel, distracting them both from the whole issue of what she might feel like to touch now that he knew more of what to expect from it. Landed that attempt in an off-balance stumble, and celebrated like it was flawless. Near enough. The sand was bleeding slippery, and he was high on her.   


Down past Venice beach, she looked over at him to say something, then frowned and stopped walking. "You're cold."

"Not too much," he told her, because okay, he was, but he could deal. Maybe adapt, like one of those cold-climate animals.   


"You're shivering," she accused bluntly, taking a big step back.   


"Water's cold. It's not you." He was, though; shivering too hard to force it to stillness now that they'd stopped moving.   


"We'd better go back," she announced, and turned around to start walking back the way they'd come, not waiting for his answer.   


He took a few longer strides to catch up, wondering at the way she immediately took charge as soon as she decided someone needed taking care of. Wanted to say something about it - nearly did - but where was the benefit of being a caring person when you were sodding murdered? Anything he said would probably sound like an insult. So he just matched her swift pace, willing the exertion to kill his shivering, and struck up a new topic. 

  
  


The house felt like an oven to step into; one he wanted to eagerly press himself to the walls of. The cold had moved away from shivering to become instead a heavy, dragging weight in his bones; a dull, numb thing that he felt oddly resigned to. Or maybe that was just his wet jeans. Either way, she got shitty with him for it. Took one good look at him standing in the desk lamp's steady light and exploded into a barrage of hot words that instantly obliterated all the heat in the room. There was,  _ Your stupid lips are white  _ and  _ What if you wake up with pneumonia tomorrow and can't go to church, huh? _ and  _ Are you trying to get yourself killed? Because a second ghost would be so helpful here, Spike! _ and  _ Get those wet clothes off before I decide to freeze them solid on you!  _   


The last one sounded like enough of an instruction to leave, so he did, scuffing his way over to the stairs. "I'm not the one of us lying in a desert,' he snarled back at the stroppy bint, but his heart wasn't in it. Too cold, maybe. He slumped upstairs and stripped off his wet things, then found warm dry ones in the drawers. Pulled the top blanket off the bed and wrapped that on too, skin glorying at the fuzzy warmth of it in the overheated bedroom.   


Then sat down on the end of the bed, huddling into a blanket alone for a minute feeling like a really good idea, because her words were becoming clearer now as his ears defrosted and yeah, that's what he was to her, first and foremost, wasn't it? Person she'd been lumped with to investigate her murder. Oh, she was kind and caring - and probably got on this well with everyone, breaking hearts wherever she went, and he was more of an idiot than he'd suspected if he'd been trying to read any personal liking into it. Needed to remember that. Love her by helping her solve her mystery, and accept her friendliness as only what it was.   


"Spike?" she called timidly from the direction of the stairs. "I don't want to come up there and make you colder, but are you okay?"

His chest panged faintly. God, her default kindness was too good for the likes of him.  _ Say something. _ "Yeah," he called back. Then got up to go down there, smoothing his face into a casual mask. He hoped. Well, could always pull the blanket up over his head. Or use it as a shield if she was still peeved.   


She was standing on the other side of the living room, looking uncomfortable. He tried to think of something clever to say, some light comment that would be both an apology for his perceived idiocy and a way to brush it aside, but was too caught up in looking at her.   


"Hey, so, um," she said, looking everywhere but at him. "Didn't mean to rage out at you like that."

"It's fine," he said quickly, waving a hand. "Was bordering on stupid of me. Know you need me in working condition tomorrow.

"No, it's-" she started, then sort of winced to a stop. "I wasn't really worried about tomorrow. Deflecting. Deflecto-Buffy." She sighed. "I think it just hit me that I've kind of invaded your life with my weird ghost ways, and I freaked out that I could be having a really bad effect on you. Like, what if I'm actually some kind of evil spirit, draining your life force or something?"

He couldn't help it; he snickered. "You're not."

"How do you know?" she retorted. "You don't know any more about ghosts than I do."

"Perhaps," he agreed. "But I do know evil, pet, and you're not it."

She studied him suspiciously. "What if it was subconscious? A side-effect? I wouldn't have to be intentionally evil for it to be a bad idea for you to spend too much time with me. I do keep making you cold."

_ Oh no you don't. _ "Can negotiate the cold, you silly thing. Warm again already, ain't I?" Or heading there. "So stop bloody fussing," he finished teasingly. Then bit his lip for a moment, hesitating, before remembering his earlier conviction to be all in. "So... you weren't just worried about losing your detective before the job was complete?" he asked carefully.   


"Nope," she said quickly, then pressed her lips together, watching him with very wide eyes for a few seconds before hastily ducking them, still suppressing a nervous smile.   


Well, all right then. "Do you want to watch another movie?" he offered, tilting his head to try to catch her hidden eyes.

"Yeah. That'd be nice," she said shyly. 

  
  


The TV had become a dull black glow several hours since, but neither of them had said anything about changing it. Too nice, just lying there talking, the blanket covering his skin so she could be curled up right beside him, their faces close to see each other in the dark. Her breath never stirred the air, so the chill from her face was a steady, cold radiance, and he kept being tempted to blow on her softly to find out if she could feel the warmth or touch of his. It was getting also getting harder and harder to keep from asking to try to kiss her.   


"What time is it?" she asked softly, reluctantly; meaning,  _ How long do we have?   
_

He heaved a sigh and twisted around to look. "Twenty minutes."

"Dammit," she grumbled. "Go over it with me again."

"No." They'd been over the plan enough times, and then ten more, her anxiety about it growing with each repetition. "I know what I'm doing, luv." Going to church. Getting a bead on Liam. Following him until he went home. Returning here, to let her take command of what came next. She was anxious about him going alone, in words; her silences told that she was perhaps even more anxious about what the next night would bring. What she might be about to uncover that she hadn't wanted to believe could be true. "Let's talk about something else."

"Don't fall asleep here," she said quickly.   


"What happened to  _ sleep in your bed next time?" _

She forced a nervous laugh. "Yes, do, but it'll be kind of a bummer to get all worked up just for you to sleep through it."

He paused. Didn't feel like he was anywhere near nodding off, but she had a point. "I'll set the alarm," he decided. "Just in case." Stretched over and did so, remembering the blare of it the night before, and... the warm softness of her in his arms. "I dreamt about you last night," he told her, snuggling back down. "Dancing with you. Through the stars."   


"Was it a nice dream?" she whispered, too many things in her eyes for him to single any out.

"Yeah," he whispered back. "I wish..."  _ that I could wish upon them all, and upon every one that glitters upon the sea, and upon every sparkle in your eyes, and we could have met some other way. _   


"Me too," she whispered.   


There didn't seem to be anything else to say, so they lay there and watched each other until the nearing sunrise forced him to close his squinting eyes.  _ Still here. Still here. _   


But then the room grew hot, way too hot, and he had to let the self-delusion go. Besides. Had a service to get to. 

  
  


What to wear was a problem. Didn't want to be memorable, and what pulled that off in bars and backrooms was a very different thing to what would perform the same task in a rather respectable-looking church. Not that he was actually planning on attending the thing, mind. He found a cream baseball cap in the back of the closet, dusted it off and jammed it onto his head. Then a Hawaiian shirt, garishly pink and orange, that'd possibly been left in there by the last owners. It'd do. Distract anyone from looking too closely at his face, anyway. Or possibly blind them entirely.   


Found his boots eventually, and tucked a blade into the left one. In case of emergency. 

Felt like he should have more... things. Costuming. Weapons. Something. Stuck hard on that sense of forgetting  _ something  _ and having no idea what it was. But this was only a recon mission. Shouldn't need anything. Refilled his wallet from his hidden stash of cash, went down to turn on the car. Her absent presence, or present absence, looming large in his attention, until on a whim he ran back in and took her bag from the drawer, relocating it to the glovebox. Could talk to that if he missed her too much.  _ Yeah, if you want to look insane. _   


Then he headed over to The Friends of the Redeemer, and found a spot down the block he could pull up in to watch the entrance to the lot. Hours to go. 

  
  


Marked a few possibilities on their way in that matched the profile Buffy had given him; big guys, with a few years on her in numerical age and several more in lifestyle. She hadn't been able to give him much beyond that, between the fact that she hadn't seen him in years and kept hitting those upsetting holes in her memories. Wondered if it was his fault; if he'd split too fast the other night, left bits of whatever supernatural energy she was formed of behind. If he hadn't... hadn't  _ touched _ her as much as he should have. His stomach threatened an uprising at even thinking on the concept, painfully, so he shook it off. Anyway. Didn't need a police sketch. Had a plan.   


He waited until the service was near to starting, then slid out of the car, shook himself into an air of casual passersby and out of that of vengeance striding (hopefully), and made his way over the road and into the reception area. Gave the boy behind the desk a harried smile, and explained that there was a distressed girl outside looking for a Liam who should be here, something about her friend being missing? Poor chit was in too much of a state to embarrass herself coming in to look, and hadn't wanted to interrupt the services but of course they'd understand, wouldn't they, what could be more Christian than helping a lost soul? And he'd better get straight back (point, wave a hand) and make sure that she was okay out there, and let her know this Liam was on his way.

Deskboy knew of  _ a _ Liam, that much was clear. Hopefully the only one in attendance. Spike split before he could be questioned, slipped back to his car to wait.  _ Oven _ of a car. Hadn't wanted to wind down the cloaking of the tinted windows, but hell, now that the sun had come over he was probably going die from bloody heat exhaustion before Liam moved his arse. Nope, there he was. Had to be him; big guy, hunched shoulders that screamed of a guilty conscience, a rushing, alarmed look on his face as he came down the stairs. He looked left and right down the sidewalk, back over his shoulder at the doors to the church, then turned right and strode down the street quickly, glancing into parked cars and gaps between buildings as he passed. 

Slouched in his seat over the road and to the left, Spike watched him and chuckled to himself. Too easy. Should have put the shits up him too. He'd have to be cautious now when he tailed him, but it was worth that to see him squirm.   


Liam went all the way to the end of the block, stood there looking around in indecision for a while, then turned around and retraced his steps and a little way past the church to the other side. Stood there looking perplexed, then shuffled back off to the church and re-entered.

Spike sat up and wound down the windows. Lit a smoke with his new plastic lighter, and wondered how the hell the arsehole could waltz back into the congregation with his sins on his mind. Meh. They all did, didn't they? Was why they were there, or some shit. Anyway. Job half done. Knew him on sight now. Caveman brow. Ridiculous hairstyle. Dull, constipated expression. Buffy had  _ fallen _ for this plonker? Fuck; he probably should have brought a camera or something. But he wasn't a real detective. Wasn't collecting evidence.   


He blew a breath out right to the bottom of his lungs, everything he'd been closing his eyes to for the past two days suddenly very visible and horribly real. Buffy was  _ dead _ . This... he didn't even have a word for him. This  _ Liam _ could very well be the one to have killed her. To have taken her poor body and dumped it in the desert like unwanted trash. To have... She might be determined to give him the benefit of the doubt, telling herself he'd  _ never  _ have done it but that if he had it must have been a terrible accident, but Spike was far less convinced. Guy was a possessive fucker, wasn't he? Coming back and guilt-tripping her into helping him out after he'd been inside. Keeping track of her whereabouts to make that call the other week. Was willing to bet he'd come up to Vegas intending to  _ make _ her come back with him - for her own safety, of course - and then throttled the life from her in a rage when she refused.   


Could see it all, suddenly; her hot-spitting tongue telling him to get out, fearless as she faced down the big brute. His meaty hands locking around her throat and  _ crushing. _ Her eyes panicked and bulging as she fought in vain to tear his arms away, but him too furious to budge an inch, squeezing tighter and tighter. Her body fading slowly into limp unconsciousness, sagging, and him  _ still  _ strangling her, waiting until everything was silent and still under his hands before he finally let her fall broken to the floor.   


His head swooped with sudden dizziness, and he bent over swiftly, dropped his face in the gap between the steering wheel and door, queasy and clammy, leaning his forehead against the dash. Hands shaking wildly, and fuck, still holding a smoke in one of them maybe; reaching towards the ashtray to butt it out before it could set the car ablaze but changing his mind last second and whipping it to his mouth instead. Inhaling; concentrate, slow down, shake that image; breath through this because puking in his car was not a sodding option, and neither was falling out of the door to make a scene. Was supposed to be on the job. Buffy, Buffy, ghost-Buffy was waiting, would be waiting, with her bright eyes and nervous hands, and - get - it - fucking - together.   


He did, somewhat, then jerked his head up, remembering that he was supposed to be bloody watching the rear entrance for Liam's exit. Checked the time; ages until the service finished. Hopefully he was sticking it out for the whole thing, sitting in there sweating up a storm knowing God was looking down on him inside while someone outside was looking for Buffy. Doubted it, though. Was probably cool as a cucumber, not caring in the slightest about what he'd done. Had to be an emotionless bloody psychopath to have-- No, don't go there again.  _ Just watch, you wanker. _ He butted out his smoke; thought about lighting another, but suspected it would only make the headrush feeling worse. Tasted bile too close in the back of his throat, skin itching again in the heat. Stripped off the fucking Hawaiian shirt, down to the plain black one underneath, remembered he'd meant to do so as soon as he got back in the car. Nevermind. Just cool it. Slow down. Should have brought some bloody weed. Except that'd be grand, wouldn't it? Getting busted for smoking a spliff outside a church, locked up and out of a job and worst of all, not where he should be when the sun went down. No, just - cool - it.   


He sighed, shifted his position slightly, and forced himself to stillness.   


And ninety-two impossibly long minutes later, Liam came out into the parking lot and got into a dinged up black convertible. Spike turned the engine over, and got ready to follow. 

  
  


Liam went straight home, in an impatient rush of rough turns and blasting straights that made him tough to keep up with in the traffic. But Spike banked on the wanker's hurry blinding him to anything in his rear vision mirrors and closed the gap, soon skipping close enough to watch him fuss and fidget and tap on the wheel at each red light.

Hard-knuckled anger was building steadily in his gut, had been all morning, an animalistic need to settle this with fists and feet and smashing Liam's head into the nearest concrete wall until something gave with a crunch. He'd never killed a man; something in him had always recoiled in abhorrence at even the idea. But he damn well knew how to fight, quick and dirty and mean as a cornered weasel. Learnt fast in jail, when you were all of five-seven, lean, and wore a face that trended towards pretty anytime you forgot to sneer. Learnt how to grit your teeth and endure inescapable pain, and learnt how to give it back. And right now, he was certain he could kill this foul excuse for a person.   


Liam's supposed home was one in a block of apartments, conveniently on the ground floor; he parked the convertible in a reserved space right outside the windows and let himself in with a key while Spike watched from across the street. Itched to follow him. Felt the pull on his feet to take him over the street, through the open gate in loping, hunting strides. Knock on the door, force his way in as soon as it opened, take the fucker apart.   


But it was her wrong to avenge. He couldn't steal it from her. He sighed to himself and pulled back onto the street, heading home to wait. 


	7. Now these hot days is the mad blood stirring

Felt steadily worse as the afternoon dragged on, restless, easeless, itchy and twitchy and pacing, the night ahead swelling to monstrous, menacing proportions in his mind's eye, then shrinking, shrinking down to something so minuscule he couldn't catch it in his hands; words like  _ dispiriting  _ and  _ disenchanting _ whispering in his ears, second thoughts rising, vengeance and justice squaring off against this- this precious thing, this last night of laughter and conversation and near-cuddling, and haunted, haunted by a dread that it was all about to end.   


Paced, smoked, jittered his way from spot to spot, images of the desert by night looming up frequently, the taste of orange dirt and vomit in his throat, cold of a lonely crevice trembling up his hands; then the heat of a baking sun pouring down, buzzards circling, insects creeping crawling over desert sands, chitinous bodies sharp wet hungry- flies circling, buzzing beneath the buzzards, inhuman eyes looking, looking-   


Checked the sky again, scratching at his forearms desperately, trying to shake scrape the sensation of things crawling; the sun was creeping, creeping, inching closer towards the sea, and he imagined it sinking like a ball of magma, hissing and spitting in great clouds of steam, boiling the ocean where it fell but still falling, falling, water rushing in until finally it succumbed to the greater power and became only a dead lump of black rock, never to rise again; could almost see it, a premonition of it maybe, and watched, waited, mad joy swirling inside, urging it on,  _ sink, you fucker, drown out there, _ and why shouldn't it, and why shouldn't he have foreknowledge of it, if there were real ghosts in the world?   


The sun touched the horizon and bled into it, melting slowly away, melting relief into his veins like a shot of cool saline. He lay down on the bed quickly, closed his eyes, hot skin waiting burning hungering for her, a vague image of kissing her filling his imagination, so much prettier than the dying sun; of lying beneath her, their hands rushing over each other, desperate to touch everywhere at once, sweat-slicked skin sliding together and hard solid bone muscle flesh beneath, her hair falling around his face in tickling waves of her scent. Then it grew cold, and he opened his eyes.

"Hey," he told her, summoning a hint of a proud smirk for the news he had of his success while she'd been gone.   


"Hey yourself," she answered with a smile. Then it vanished into worry. "Did you go?"

"Course I bloody went," he shot back teasingly, trying to clutch after the moment of easy greeting, but it was gone, everything was serious now. "Followed him home," he said quietly. "Came back to wait for you."

She drew in a deep breath and sighed it out. "Okay." Chewed her lip for a few moments, thinking. "I guess we go there then. Ask him..." She sighed again, small and reluctant. "I'll wing it," she finished quietly.   


He studied her face, bits of the afternoon's feelings coalescing into a grim sense of dread. "We don't have to," he murmured, very low.

She thought about it. He saw the fantasy flow in her eyes, a wistful dream without hope. "Yes, we do," she told him as it faded.   


He nodded and got up. Didn't seem to be anything to say.

  
  


Drove across town in a daze, disparate things jumping and flickering through his attention, trying to remember to watch the road instead of only her. She watched out of her window, curled up in some private silence, both of them holding their tongues tight.   


Found an empty space down the street from Liam's, stopped the car. Turned to look back at the apartment through the rear windscreen. Couldn't see anything beyond the entrance to the parking lot from there, but it had looked like a light was on as they passed.   


Movement in the corner of his eye jerked his face back to her; she'd reached for his arm, then frozen in place. Drew her hand back to her lap uncomfortably.   


"I don't want to go in there," she rushed out in a small, tight voice.   


He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded once. "I'll go."   


"Are you sure?"   


"Yeah." Was. Knew now it had been inevitable all along; that he was the intermediary between her shade and this horror from her past.   


"What are you going to..." she trailed off, looking through the rear windscreen herself. Took a breath. "Ask him about Whistler. Say you're a friend of mine, and I asked you to look into his warning. Say I lost his number or something, but you lived nearby."

Whistler. Right. He'd slithered away, somewhere during the day. Mustn't forget. "Okay." He'd start with that. He shook his fingers out, then climbed from the vehicle.

"Spike!" she called after him.   


He leant against the DeSoto's roof, looking back in at her.

"I don't want _you_ to go in there either," she said quickly, face a mask of near-panic.

"Hush," he told her gently. "It'll be fine, luv. Ask a few uncomfortable questions, get the info we need, and I'll be straight back, yeah?"

"Yeah," she echoed quietly, but it sounded more like,  _ no. _   


"It'll be fine," he repeated, then straightened up, closed the door, and turned for the apartment before he could change his mind, feeling like he'd just told the biggest lie of his life.

  
  


Liam opened the door onto its security chain, making him want to grate his teeth behind the non-threatening smile he'd put in place.   


"Can I help you?" he asked with a disinterested frown. Spike suspected that 'disinterested frown' was his default look.

"Are you Liam?" he asked, aiming for hopeful. "Buffy's Liam?"

That earnt him a swift change of expression. "Why?" he asked quickly.

Spike looked over his shoulder, very obviously scanning around the parking lot for some unknown danger, ducking closer to Liam's door as he did so. "Let me in," he said anxiously. "Need to talk to you."

Liam just stood there, staring at him thickly.   


Spike shuffled his feet, trying to look ready to bolt, keeping himself ducked smaller and glad suddenly that he was only wearing a t-shirt and not the imposing cloak of his usual leather coat.   


Evidently deciding he didn't look like much of a physical threat, or that any such was outweighed by that of whatever he knew, Liam muttered a, "Hang on," and closed the door, rattled the chain across, then opened it just wide enough to let him in to a living room.   


Liam closed the door behind him with the heavy clunk of a deadlock, then moved to the opposite side of the room, crossing his arms over his chest. His big, brutish chest.   


It stoked something back to life inside him; a gravelly, gritted determination to see the bastard pay.   


"What do you know about Buffy?" Liam asked flatly.

Was he worried? Eager? Getting ready to pull a gun and add a second murder to his week? Christ, the man's face was an emotionless brick. When in doubt, fall back on the plan. "She's a friend," he said. "Asked me to come find you for her, since she doesn't have your number." He cast an obvious glance at the nearest window, lowered his voice, "I don't know what you guys are mixed up in, but she's all worried about this Whistler bloke. Put the shits up me." Fuck, he wasn't going to be able to keep this up for long. His blood was running too hot in his veins, itching for the break.   


"What sort of friend?" Liam asked, low and definitely threatening now. Like the bastard thought he owned her.

"What's it to you?" Spike snarked at him. Fuck, he was going to derail the plan too fast, could see it coming, feel it in his tendons, in the adrenaline flooding into his bloodstream. "What's Whistler's real name?" he asked before he could forget to.   


"What's yours?" Liam growled back, eyes shifty, still undecided.   


Maybe he could still salvage some chance at information before it all went sideways. "Spike."

Liam deepened his frown, fixing him with it, and the air began to crackle strangely. "Spike from Vegas?" he asked darkly--

  
  


...and shit went way beyond sideways. 

  
  
  
  


The blood on his hands was congealing, thickening too fast, slippery and tacky at the same time, making him have to fight to turn the tap. Something gave finally and water appeared, clear, clear crystal water flowing onto his hand, then hands, water turning red, red-globuled red-flaked red-stained, into more and more blood spreading splashing everywhere. What the fuck did he think he was doing? Turned the tap off and laughed a high-pitched, humourless, soft scream of an imitation of a laugh. Blinking, scrunching his eyes shut and opening them again in a circuit, each side worse than the other; blood, all of this blood everywhere on his wildly shaking body, or what had happened before, stuck behind his closed eyelids. Liam grappling with him, words, shouted words that were gibberish, spittle flying and fists with it, knees and elbows and furniture breaking, gibberish gibberish gibberish that wouldn't become sense, never, Liam's hands finding his throat, like they must have found Buffy’s, desperate rage inside him at the knowledge, rightness, clarity and the answer to it all in the unbreakable grip of the hands around his neck and the blackness closing in in his vision, rage enough to stretch his fingers that inch further into his left boot and close them around a hilt; driving a blade into ribs, a back, down an arm, feeling like he was going to lose this race but hoping to leave the crushing weight on top of him with wounds enough to lose it too - that carve to an arm loosening the grip on his neck enough that the blackness pulled back again - stabbing and stabbing in a desperate fury until finally he could breathe again, somewhat, enough to force his way out from under the gurgling, squelching body of his attacker - hers - something - dragging himself out of reach and watching, watching as the arsehole choked and coughed in red sprays and flailed blindly and finally drowned in his own blood, twitching and convulsing like dying things should, eyes rolling back and feet kicking like a sheep with its throat slit, his snake tongue of nonsense finally falling thick and dead in his slackening jaw.

Couldn't stop shaking. Unhinged laughter still wisping his breath. Survivor's rush, reminding himself, just the comedown of the adrenaline, mild shock kicking in maybe as his body categorised its injuries. Needed a smoke, drink, hit, something; looked at his red shaking hands again and cackled at the impossibility of smoking with them. Everything fractured and skippy, jumping, twitching, where the fuck was he? Things, things forgotten, lost, to find, Buffy, where was she? Wanted to scream for her, run to bury himself in her chest; impossible, would go through, freeze, only a ghost a ghost a ghost   


A dark-stained body lying on the floor, blood sodding everywhere; déjà fucking vu and he was on his way back inside, that was for fucking sure, about to be caught red-everythinged after the noise they must have made, but at least the deed was fucking  _ his _ this time, done for the right reasons, for her her her who had to be avenged-- he'd failed the Whistler question, dammit, foul thing needed putting down too, and he'd crossed the line already, hadn't he, no time for hesitations little concerns like rules and laws now, might as well fucking add to the tally-- Search. Had to be something here to tell him how to find him. Fast. Go.

He tore through the place, opening drawers, lifting cushions, forgetting what he was looking for over and over but hurrying, hurrying; sensing movement behind him and whirling, afraid, but it was only Buffy, of course, coming looking because he was taking too long--

Buffy pointing at something on a bench, her face pale, eyes distressed; pointing at a pile of mail, and he searched through it, found a letter from a probation service, found Whistler's name. 

  
  


Back in the car, driving, driving away, fast, not too fast, duck and run and sneak and hide, trying to remember that name name name-- no forget it, had no address to go with it, things all too distorted and him too fucking shaky anyway just get out--

  
  


Open road, clear of the city, back on the I-15 heading east again. In a circle, running back to the beginning, Buffy sitting beside him again. Smoking with bloodstained fingers this time, so much copper in his nose, fresh in his mouth, all wet in his mouth and wondering if he'd bitten his tongue, cheek, maybe lost a tooth to one of those punches. Buffy chattering away, blissfully unaware somehow, talking about something else entirely. Telling him about how she'd once had dreams of being a famous ice skater; a bangle on her arm catching and refracting the light as she spoke with her hands. Blink, and she lay on a foreign bed with him, still telling the same story, laughing smiling and warm - older, perhaps, more mature somehow, or just wearing different makeup - from a future that could never be because she was dead, and now Liam was too, but that hadn't made her any less so. Blinked again, and swerved back into his lane, road writhing like a rattlesnake before him, concentrate, concentrate, don't run off the fucking road, gotta get to... somewhere. Back.

  
  


Reality tilted, and he was sitting on a leather couch telling her how he'd once had illusions of becoming a poet, not meaning to but shit just falling out of his mouth, and besides, wanting to tell her everything, this crazy girl who'd burst into his life and upended everything, throw it all out there because what did it matter, this was only a temporary thing and he was going to be left with a basketful of regrets if he held any part of himself back from it.   


Shook his head, gripped a handful of his hair tight for a minute, ordering himself to stay awake, stop fucking dreaming, don't nod off at the wheel.   


"Are you okay?" Buffy asked.

Turned to look at her, blinking hard again, looking for her yellow sunshine dress and staring at her little black skirt and shirt, familiar and not. "No," he told her.   


She raised her champagne glass, tilted it at the windscreen in indication. "You should probably watch the road."

"Yeah." Turned back to it, peered; saw how slow he was going and put his foot down again. Long way to go. Back and back and back. "I killed Liam."

"I have this... ex-boyfriend," she said. "If we're on the topic of 'problematic exes'. It's kind of a long story though."   


"I know," he said, but that was wrong, wasn't it? Not what he'd said at all.  _ It's a long drive _ or  _ it's a long night _ or  _ it's a long... day _ . "Had. Not anymore."

She laughed, rich and warm. "Is that an offer, bad boy?"

"If you like," he'd told her, with a smirk and a wink, playing up the bad boy act and knowing, with her, that that was all it ever was, that this weekend it didn't matter what hats they wore, that they'd found something underneath them in each other, some connection between selves that rendered all else meaningless side detail. "Tell me the story, luv," he heard himself say, somewhere, somewhen. Shook his head again, things slipping and sliding, fuzzing and blurring, making no sense, remembering everything wrong; must have taken some harder hits than he'd realised in that fight.

"Which one?" she asked quietly.   


Froze for a second, terror biting ever deeper, its metallic fangs locking him in place.   


Shot a couple of quick glances at her between watching the road; scanning her outfit, the dusky eyeliner, the jewellery, the shoes. Saw her dancing in them, dancing in an intimate little bar, dancing with a man... looked closer, peering at the glass, straining his eyes to  _ see _ better-- a man who wasn't Liam, but wasn't him either. Not that it could have been. He'd remember. Would have remembered this girl for the rest of his life from the first glimpse of her face. "The one of how we met," he murmured, hushed, afraid.

"Which one?" she said again.   


"The truth," he whispered. Then growled it, loud, "The sodding truth, Buffy."

"All right," she said, raising her palms and rolling her eyes. "Jeez." She settled back, kicked her feet up on the dashboard, glossy black heels glinting wetly. "You were parked behind a billboard on the side of the I-15," she started. "Leaning back against the hood in your tight black shirt and jeans, looking every bit the sinful fantasy of devilish temptation." Her lips curled into a hungry smile, and she twisted to face him better, hooking an arm up on the back of the seat. "I almost thought you might be - you know, a demon, or Lucy himself, coming to tempt me downstairs." She chuckled, sultry beneath the self-amusement.   


But he'd stopped giving her his full attention, or half attention; was splitting it three ways now, between her and the road and...  _ why _ had he been stopped there that night? Couldn't remember stopping. Which wasn't so strange on its own - an idle decision, pulling over while thinking about something else - but what had he been doing  _ before  _ that? All fucking week? He'd dropped off and picked up on the Friday, then had until Thursday night before Harm was coming by for that last package, and he couldn't remember a damn thing of it; would have remembered seeing Harm, she was always trying to get him to sleep with her again after that one time she'd caught him in a reckless mood. "Stop," he told her gruffly. "The other story. Tell me that one."

"It's not real," she said in a low hiss.   


"Don't care," he growled. "Tell me anyway."

"I don't think I should," she said, and her voice was shrinking back now, becoming a tremulous thing. "I don't think we  _ want _ it to be real, Spike."

He felt cold, colder than he had when he'd touched her, colder than the dark ocean, coldness leaching in from his extremities to pool in his stomach, trickle by trickle. He turned his gaze to her slowly, trepidation making it hard to force it over, terrified of what he might find, but she was only watching him back with frightened, stubborn eyes.

Fuck. He was being a selfish, self-absorbed prick. Was supposed to look after her. Help her. Had lost track of too much, flown apart too much, somehow forgotten... "Sorry, luv," he mumbled, forcing the words up from some vague, distant place. "Forget it. Ignore me. Think I'm..." he rubbed at his face, nothing feeling right. "Coming down with something, maybe." Christ, maybe he had caught the flu last night. Yes, yes, hold to that, don't bloody upset her more.   


"Okay," she said softly. "Just concentrate on driving, then." Quiet, quiet, all hushed and small, little things strung tentatively on eggshell strings.

He swallowed hard, telling himself to shut up; found it painful and harder than expected, throat all wrong and coppery still, probably bruised by-- Fuck, don't think about that either. Lit another smoke with fumbling hands; couldn't taste the damn thing, but concentrated on the pull and shift of his lungs and kept quiet, thinking, thinking.   


He and Buffy, lying on the bed, talking all through the night _.  _ But not quite his bed; the scene shifting and flickering, like two semi-transparent films playing over each other. His bed his room his TV. A hotel room, a top-class suite, the bed bigger and the bedding softer than his, but most of all; his arm around her shoulders, her warm cheek against his bare skin, him kissing the top of her head, casual and fond.   


He and Buffy, walking in the edge of the water. The sea rolling and crashing, waves spraying. A long row of fountains, filling the centre of a pedestrian road, water gleaming in the light, and her kicking at jets of water, laughing as she tried to spray him.

Dancing with her, surrounded by starlight. In a dream, in a fantasy, too perfect to be real, too weightless in space. Under the influence, under fairy lights perhaps, the weight of her in his arms too vivid to be imagined, the only sensation that mattered.   


He hadn't just felt like he knew her. He'd  _ known  _ her. Maybe well enough to... He looked at her from the corner of his eye again, away, back, away, and still she watched out of her window quietly, lost in her own thoughts. No. He wasn't alone. Couldn't be making all of this up. So maybe he'd worried about it for a second or two, back at the beginning, before he'd caught up on sleep and spent more time with her, but there was no way he could be now. And there were rules, weren't there; stupid ones, ones he hated, like the fact that she only came out at night and that he couldn't touch her. And... Liam. Man whose lifeblood was now staining his hands, arms, him, head to toe. What had he said, when it all kicked off?  _ Spike from Vegas? _   


New and grisly possibilities crept out like grasping vines, slithering into him with an awful rightness as he pulled them close. Gaps in his memory. Gaps in hers. A man who'd dealt in pills that caused such things. A man who'd been livid at the idea of Spike knowing  _ his _ Buffy... at the knowledge of him  _ being _ with Buffy. A... had there been a phone call? Image vague, but there; Buffy holding a little phone to her ear, telling it that  _ oh, that was Spike, and I'm staying with him so no need to come over here, thanks anyway. _   


Realised the car was slowing down again, the subconscious urge to turn around and go back to that apartment lightening his foot. Put it back down; nothing to go back to, except the police. Wished he'd taken his time, been more patient, found out how the fucker had found them, caught them,  _ killed  _ her. Wished he'd tortured him slow and painful like he deserved. Tortured him forever. Glad he'd killed him, glad it had hurt, but no level of hurt could have been enough.   


Buffy had been alive, so very alive, and they'd been full of crazy hopes and wild possibilities together, and he had stolen them all away.

  
  


Miles slid and rumbled by, Buffy curled up in her seat watching the night roll past, himself keeping his foot planted and trembling hands in place while he sifted through a kaleidoscopic confusion of fractured images, chasing bits here and there, searching for the gaps, the piece for each hole, the sharp-edged answers that hurt his head to probe for.   


It came together into a loose, holey patchwork, stitched with suppositions, but what was there was dreadfully, wonderfully real. Thirty miles from the outskirts of Vegas, he pulled over on the edge of the desert and said, "Let me tell you a story."

She sighed, like she was bracing herself, then turned around to face him again. "Okay," she murmured, sombre but ready.   


"It was one a.m. on Saturday and I was standing on the upper balcony at Midnight Dave's, watching you on the dance floor. Full of jaded bitterness and wallowing in a wave of self-pity..."


End file.
